Et is quite possible that the punchline from the tenth minute of injury time in the final of the U21 European Championship will be remembered more often, as it has the potential to be considered a turning point one day. England goalkeeper James Trafford saved Spain’s penalty in those final moments of the tournament to not only salvage his side’s 1-0 victory but England’s first U-21 title in 39 years. The senior national team has been waiting for a tournament win since 1966, and time and again it was penalties that were fatal to them. Not this time, and Trafford knew it
A group of real champions
“This morning I told everyone I was going to save a penalty,” said the keeper, who was loaned to Bolton from Manchester City last season and is likely to play for newly promoted Premier League side Burnley next year. “I knew I was going to keep him and to be honest, it was pretty easy,” said Trafford, who was the first goalkeeper in U-21 history to achieve the feat of not conceding a single goal in an entire European Championship tournament allow. Now the English are hoping that this newfound efficiency will become a permanent feature of their national team football.
England were European U-19 champions last year, and two players won the 2017 U-17 World Cup in newly crowned U-21 European champions Morgan Gibbs-White and Angel Gomes. Perhaps a generation is emerging here with a skill that this nation’s national teams have long lacked: a group of true champions.
His team didn’t always play the very best football, not even in this sometimes rough final, which was decided by a free-kick deflected into the Spanish goal by Curtis Jones (45′). But she ended up winning all the games of the tournament to clean sheets. “This group of players has proven that they can win,” said coach Lee Carsley and attacker Anthony Gordon emphasized the ability to tournament pragmatism: “We didn’t have the one style of play, that was important. Because every game is different.”
Sometimes they stood deep, sometimes they pressed, sometimes they countered, sometimes they created possession dominance, but above all the successors of the German team, which won last year and was eliminated early, developed a strength that became central at the end of many major tournaments factor on the way to success: They not only dutifully defended their own goal, but with conviction as a community. Not least because of this, James Trafford is already being hailed by the “Guardian” as “a rising star aiming to become England’s number one”.
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