“It was life-changing. When you are playing in an academy, you don’t get mentioned or recognised too often. My phone just went off after I played so well in the final. It was like everyone knew me instantly. I was recognized by everyone walking along the streets. After the final, my life definitely changed.”
Phil FodenIt is very telling The AthleticThe day England’s under-17s won the World Cup.
This tournament was where a new generation of football talent came into the world. It was almost an instant that Foden emerged. Jadon Sancho, Rhian BrewsterCallum Hudson-Odoi, and other prominent figures rose to prominence.
They had played five months before. SpainThe European Under-17 Championship final was a thrilling affair. They were leading 2-1 at the end of the sixth minute. Spain equalised. The game went to a penalty shootout and England’s players found out how cruel this sport can be.
They had the opportunity to be declared world champions, but it was still the same opposition.
“That was always in our mind,” says Foden, who won the Golden Ball award as the World Cup’s outstanding player. “We didn’t want that feeling again. The desire to defeat them was evident when I looked around the changing rooms before the game. ‘We have to win, we have to get them back for what they did to us in the Euros and how we lost’. It was all calm. It was just, ‘Come on lads, we’ve got it today’.”
This week is the fifth anniversary of England’s triumph in India. Here’s part one, told by the people at the center of it.
Steve Cooper(team manager, now at Nottingham Forest).
Phil Foden (Manchester City).
Rhian Brewster (then LiverpoolNow Sheffield United).
Angel Gomes (Manchester UnitedLille is now.
Jadon Sancho (Borussia DortmundManchester United is now a club.
Callum Hudson-Odoi (ChelseaNow available on loan Bayer Leverkusen).
Joel Latibeaudiere(Manchester City. Now Swansea City).
Steven Sessegnon (FulhamNow available on loan Charlton Athletic).
Timothy Eyoma (Tottenham HotspurLincoln City, now
Tashan O.-Boothe(Tottenham now on loan to Lincoln City, Stoke City).
Curtis Anderson(Manchester City, now Lancaster City).
Jonathan Panzo(Chelsea now on loan at Coventry City City from Forest
Jon Alty(Former FA physio)
Ian Brewster(father of Rhian).
Cooper: “It’s something that will always keep us together, as players and staff, whenever we see each other. It will continue to be so long as we all remain here. We will always have that experience.”
Rhian Brewster: “When we lost the Euros final, I looked around the changing room. I could see in everybody’s faces how angry and pissed off everyone was. I can’t remember who it was but I said to someone sitting next to me, ‘We’re going to win the World Cup’. I knew we were going to win it because we didn’t want to feel that hurt again. We were mad and upset. I knew for sure we didn’t want to feel like that again. It was just weird that it was Spain again.”
Sessegnon: “There was a rivalry between us and Spain. We didn’t like each other. The pitch was fraught with problems and arguments, which made it personal for everyone. That was something we couldn’t let go.”
Eyoma: “The talent in our group was mad, even the players on the bench who were able to come on. I was right-back. Phil and I were good friends. I just used to give him the ball and let him do the rest.”
Panzo: “Phil and ‘Sanch’ were the standout players. Callum Hudson-Odoi was also a friend and mentor. There were many more: Emile Smith Rowe (Arsenal), Conor Gallagher (Chelsea), Morgan Gibbs White (Wolverhampton Wanderers). But for me, when I used to link up with England, Phil and Sanch were the main two.”
Oakley-Boothe: “The thing about Phil is heAlways wants to be the best. He used to do stupid stuff like kick-ups in the shower.”
Eyoma: “He had always got a ball with him.”
Oakley-Boothe: “He used to bring this small, size-one Nike ball with him and he’d be doing kick-ups in the hotel room and the dressing room.”
Latibeaudiere: “Him and George McEachran in the corridors, literally playing one-v-one against each other. Absolute carnage.”
Gomes: ”I spoke a lot to Phil in that camp. It’s funny how it sounds but he was still very upset about certain things, even though he was playing well. He’d speak to me a lot. He would be able to talk to me during games, giving him the extra boost and confidence. When he feels that love, he’s unstoppable. In that tournament, he was unstoppable.”
Foden: “I had a slow build-up to the tournament. In the first few games, I wasn’t playing as well as I could. Sometimes, I was very down.
“Angel was one of my closest friends in the team. I’d always go speak to him if I had a problem and it was the same for him if he ever had a problem. This was our relationship. Angel came to talk to me. ‘Look’, he said, ‘you’re an unbelievable player, so important to our team’. He got me going, made me feel welcome, gave me the confidence to start performing.”
England started the tournament with an impressive 4-0 victory over Chile. Hudson-Odoi scored the opening goal before Sancho scored two goals. Gomes then added the fourth goal from a free kick.
Rhian Brewster: “To win 4-0 in our first match set a benchmark for the whole tournament. Not just for us, it was for all the other teams. Straight away they were all thinking, ‘Whoa!’.”
Panzo: “Most games, ‘Sanch’ would score one or two and make it look easy. He was a natural talent. Where we’re from – south London, playing in the cages – it’s all about skill and expressing yourself. Sanch brought that to the pitch. I used to be able to see him do things that I couldn’t see when I was in a cage. It was fun for him. It was like Ronaldinho when he used to play, all fun.”
Anderson: “Before the first game we all had individual meetings. We met with management to discuss the players in our squad. One of the questions was for me. Josef Bursik (another of England’s goalkeepers). We were required to describe the best qualities of these players and give a list.
“We didn’t know why we were doing it until we got to the changing rooms for the first game. The paper that each player had written on was stuck to the wall. It included a list of all the positive things about them. All of it was anonymous, so nobody knew what had been said about whom. One of the things written on mine was ‘trustworthy’. I truly appreciated it. It was like, ‘Wow, that is really powerful’. It brought us together even more.”
Sancho was also on target in England’s next match of group F, a 3-2 win over MexicoThis also saw goals by Foden and Brewster. England had won with one game remaining and the players were still learning about India’s passion for football.
Panzo: “On the way to training we’d see a lot of homeless people. It made me realise I’m lucky to live in a first-world country and have a roof over my head. It made me appreciate my life more. It was nice to spread some love and positivity to those people when we were out there.“
Gomes: “There was one incident when we were driving and there was a cow in the road so we had to stop. We were confused until someone explained that cows were sacred in India.”
Rhian Brewster: “I remember seeing a motorbike with a kid at the front, a kid behind, the dad, the mum and another kid. I was thinking, ‘How do you fit five people on a motorbike?’. But somehow they did.”
Hudson-Odoi:It was extremely hot. We couldn’t really go outside and do stuff. One day, as we were leaving the hotel, a cow came after us. We ran back inside. It was quite funny. So many cows and dogs there… when I saw that cow running at us, I thought, ‘Best not stick around’.”
Latibeaudiere: “The backroom staff set up all sorts of things at the hotel: ping pong, pool, darts, Playstations, Xbox. The hotel was very well-equipped, which made it easy to spend time. And because we all got on so well, it was just like being on holiday with your mates.”
Sancho: “I was rooming with Angel Gomes. We laughed and joked all the way. He was the prankster. He told everyone one day it was my birthday and got everyone to sing Happy Birthday… it wasn’t even my birthday.”
Anderson: “We had a full floor of the hotel, so the corridor became a cricket pitch. We would immediately start playing cricket after we returned from training. After dinner, we would go back to playing cricket. We used a tennisball. For the stumps, we used a tennis ball from the kit room. It was all we could do. Everyone involved, from the staff to the physios to the kit man. Everyone was joining in.”
JapanThe first knockout round saw the opposition. It finished 0-0 and that led to the drama of a penalty shootout in which Anderson saved Japan’s third penalty and then, remarkably, scored England’s fourth. Foden, Hudson-Odoi, and Brewster had all scored from 12 yards. Crystal Palace’s Nya Kirby to slot in the decisive penalty.
Gomes: “It’s weird because when a game didn’t go our way we would be confused. It sounds crazy but if we hadn’t scored in 20 minutes, or created a few chances, we would be looking at each other, ‘What’s going on? What’s happening here?’. Japan made it difficult for us and that was the first time we felt, ‘Wow, we’re in a game now’.”
Rhian Brewster: “To this day, they played the best 4-4-2 formation I’ve ever seen. They played at the same speed throughout the game and were well-organized. It was weird because in the 90th minute I was absolutely shattered and they were still going and I remember thinking, ‘Aren’t they tired?’. That game was tough.”
Panzo: “That one sticks out because they were different. They just kept on running and running.”
Anderson: “I had joked about taking a penalty for a while but, as it got closer, I got a bit more serious — but still kind of joking. I was constantly smacking them in the face during training. We’d take one or two penalties at the end of every session and I missed only one in the whole tournament. It was never a case of being chosen — I asked to take it. I must have been feeling brave because, looking back, I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Latibeaudiere: “We practised after every session. It would be very stressful. You would then stand on the halfway line and walk up to your penalty. It wasn’t like everyone was around the box, egging you on. It was serious. And because of the situation in the Euros final (against Spain), the boys knew this wasn’t a jolly-up. We took it really seriously.”
Rhian Brewster: “In training, it was hard. The goalkeeper had to know which direction we were shooting and where to place it. It was a very high level sport. If somebody missed it was like, ‘Whoa, he missed!’. Very few missed. So, as soon as the final whistle went and it was going to penalties, I never once thought we were going to lose.”
Anderson: “I have never been so scared in my life. After saving one, imagine if I’d stepped up and missed. The save would have been worthless, so it was double pressure.
“Before my penalty, I just stopped for a moment and said to myself, ‘It’s fine, if I miss I’ll just save the next one’. That was all I could do to calm down a bit.
“I hit it and all I was hoping was, ‘Please make the goalkeeper dive the wrong way’. I saw him dive the right way and I knew my shot wasn’t in the corner. I was certain he would save it. If it were me, I would have been mad not to save it. It went in and I could feel his relief. It was the biggest relief I have ever felt.”
Part Two will be published Friday
Contributors: Gregg Evans and Daniel Taylor. Nancy Frostick, Raphael Honigstein. Paul Taylor.
(Photos: Getty Images. Design: Sam Richardson).
