{"id":200494,"date":"2025-06-20T18:07:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T18:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/200494\/"},"modified":"2025-06-20T18:07:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T18:07:11","slug":"england-u21-boss-carsley-plays-down-underdog-tag-ahead-of-facing-spain-in-euros-quarter-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/200494\/","title":{"rendered":"England U21 boss Carsley plays down ‘underdog’ tag ahead of facing Spain in Euros quarter-final"},"content":{"rendered":"

England Under-21 head coach Lee Carsley says that he does not feel that his side are the \u201cunderdogs\u201d ahead of their quarter-final clash with Spain.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Young Lions finished second in their group after beating Czechia, but drawing with Slovenia and losing to Germany<\/a>, while La Roja topped theirs, winning two and drawing one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The quarter-final is a repeat of the 2023 final, in which England emerged victorious, courtesy of Curtis Jones\u2019 strike and James Trafford\u2019s late penalty save.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t feel like an underdog. I think there\u2019s a massive expectancy against Spain that we can perform and that\u2019s all we need to do,\u201d Carsley said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can perform and play to our ability, we\u2019ve got a great chance of winning the game. I believe that Spain are a top team and you have to beat all of the top teams and Spain are another team that we\u2019ve got a lot of respect for.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe final we had a couple of years ago was so close. It could have gone either way, we scored a fortunate goal and played okay in the game, but there\u2019s definitely a lot more to come from us if we\u2019re going to progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carsley has faced criticism for only naming one recognised centre-forward in the squad in Birmingham City\u2019s Jay Stansfield after Liam Delap dropped out, but Stansfield has only started one of the three group-stage games.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Young Lions have played in a 4-2-2-2 formation, with the likes of Jonathan Rowe and Omari Hutchinson playing in the more advanced forward roles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know I\u2019ve spoken about this before, but I try to get away from positions too much,\u201d he said. \u201cAt one point the other night, I think we had five attackers on the pitch, so that\u2019s more important. The amount of chances we\u2019re creating is a real positive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the most difficult thing is to score a goal and maybe we just need a little bit of luck. We need maybe a scruffy one. I think the main thing is that we keep creating the chances, we keep running to the areas. We have the belief that it\u2019s going to drop and I think we can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Carsley is also aware that his side will have to match Spain\u2019s physicality and fitness levels to progress to the semi-final.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Santi Denia\u2019s side have scored three of their six goals between the 80th minute and full-time, including an injury-time winner against Slovakia.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re going to control the game, we need players that are capable of taking the ball but also running. We almost want the best of both worlds. At a minimum, we have to manage and match Spain\u2019s intensity and physicality and then impose our own style on them,\u201d Carsley said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England Under-21 head coach Lee Carsley says that he does not feel that his side are the \u201cunderdogs\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-200494","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114717028815531055","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}