England will face Wales at next summer’s European Championship in France after the two home nations were drawn together in Group B.
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Their Group B opener will be against Slovakia in Bordeaux on Saturday, June 11th, before travelling to Lens to face England five days later.
Welsh manager, Chris Colman added; “Well, we’ve got them, it will be a great game”.
“But I would like to think we have one or two players that will occupy Chris’s mind in terms of how we stop them”. To win 10 games like they (England) did in the qualifying campaign is a fantastic return. “I’ve not come across either Russian Federation or Slovakia in my worldwide career so it’s two newcomers, but we respect them and it’s a question of doing plenty of research so we know enough about them as we think we do about Wales”. Life is going on in Paris as normal as it can do – around the corner there has been a climate change march – and I believe that is how it will be for the Euros.
Dyke famously foretold the Three Lions’ early exit from last year’s World Cup when he made a tongue-in-cheek throat-slitting gesture after they were drawn alongside Italy, Uruguay and Costa Rica.
“(Leonid) Slutsky has done extremely well since taking over and has got them winning again.
Last but not least, Paul McShane will likely be part of Martin O’Neil’s Republic of Ireland squad who qualified through the play-offs to reach Group E with Belgium, Italy, and Sweden.
A good draw – everything is down to us. “Whichever teams we got in that pot would have been tough, so why not have a tough one close to home?”
“Obviously you might need a bit of luck along the way, but we’ll be going there trying to upset a few people”.
Hosts France were handed a kind draw in Group A, being pitted alongside major tournament debutants Albania, Romania and Switzerland, who Les Bleus beat 5-2 at the World Cup in Brazil past year.
Glenn said he, Hodgson and technical director Dan Ashworth will study a raft of statistics after the tournament to see how England have performed. Getting out of that group will be a significant achievement for the Ulster-men, while Germany v Poland at the Stade de France on June 16 should be one of the highlights of the tournament.
“But on top of that, he has done it playing very much as a team player, so his contribution outside of the goals has been quite enormous”. – Germany’s Thomas Mueller on Twitter on the prospect of facing Bayern Munich colleague Robert Lewandowski and his Poland side.
“At the end of the draw the chief executive said to me: “Well you have to beat Germany if you want to win the tournament”, and of course that was slightly tongue in cheek, but everybody’s looking forward to it”.
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“We are a lot further down the line now”.
