England 3-0 USA
Wayne Rooney hanged up his boots on the international stage with a final match against United States. The Americans did not propose much competition and were quickly overran by the English team.
Rooney was name captain for his 120th and last cap with the English National Team. Coach Southgate reflects on what Rooney meant for English football:
“I think, from our point of view, we’re talking a lot about what playing for England means for us and respecting the shirt and respecting those that have gone before.
And I think all of the players did that really well this week and we’ve given Wayne a tribute that he deserves. The boys played him in a couple of times and that would’ve been perfect if it had gone a yard the other side of [Brad] Guzan at the end.
That would have been a fairy tale but he’s probably had a few of those in his career already.”
A group final
Next up for England is Croatia for the final of the group to determine the winner. A lot is at stake as all three teams including Spain can still qualify to the UEFA Nations League semifinals.
Indeed, Croatian beat Spain 3-2 and gave themselves a chance to reach the Final Four of the Nations League with a win in England. Spain can still qualify if the game ends in a tie.
The coach previews the upcoming match:
This will be our third meeting in the space of a few months. They’ve all been played under different circumstances. The World Cup semi-final will live in our memories, both good and bad, for a long time. We then had the behind-closed-doors situation in our game last month before we return to Wembley knowing that we could end up with either the possibility of playing to go to a Nations League semi-final or to stay in League A.
