06 July 2023 , 15:36
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As sporting weekends go, they don’t come much more spectacular than the one that lies immediately ahead.
The Ashes, Wimbledon, the British Grand Prix, the Tour de France … and a football match in the Adjarabet Arena in Georgia. The home of FC Dinamo Batumi, the 20,383-seater stadium will stage the Under-21 Euro 2023 final in which England take on Spain.
The competition may have passed by some football fans as, regrettably, it has not been broadcast by either terrestrial TV or any satellite channels.The only way you might have watched the hugely impressive progress of the English team is by clicking on to an official UEFA stream.
If you have not done that, you have missed England beating the Czech Republic, Israel, Germany, Portugal and Israel again on their way to Saturday’s final. On that run to the tournament’s climax, they have scored 10 times and conceded none.
It has been mightily impressive but the England squad does have a mightily impressive array of talent, stocked with plenty of established Premier League operators and players whose market value would - or has already - run into the tens and tens of millions of pounds.
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Anthony Gordon cost Newcastle United £45million and Morgan Gibbs-White could end up costing Nottingham Forest a similar amount - both have starred in this tournament. The fact that Gordon and Gibbs-White are aged 22 and 23 respectively could prompt a debate for another day but the age regulations mean there is a lot of club first-team experience available to the head coach.
But managing and motivating an England under-21 squad is harder than you might think and that is why Saturday will be a landmark moment for Lee Carsley. You must be doing something right if players who have had very long, very hard seasons, want to come and play for you in a summer tournament in Georgia and Romania.
Yes, it is representing your country but it is also a ‘junior’ tournament being staged when most of your friends and colleagues are taking a well-earned break. Gibbs-White started 34 Premier League games for Forest last season, the first of which was on August 6, 2022, and this, remember, is a player whose style demands a serious engine.
Gareth Southgate managed the U21s before stepping up to the senior squad (Getty Images)And competing in a summer that follows a strenuous club campaign is not without risk. Jacob Ramsey, also 22, started 31 Premier League matches for Aston Villa last season and was a headline performer for England under-21s until an ankle injury forced him out of the quarter-final win over Portugal and the tournament.
Not every Premier Club turns cartwheels at the prospect of their young blue-chip stars doing international ‘off-season’ duty with what is essentially a feeder team. But this group of players clearly buys into what Carsley is doing. Everything you hear about Carsley’s coaching and his man-management skills is ultra-positive.
At the age of 49, this is probably a watershed stage of his career. He has had the briefest of cracks at club management - temporary spells at Coventry, Brentford and Birmingham - but there are suggestions he might want to explore new options in that field.
A European Championship win would look good on his CV, that is for sure. There have been suggestions the Irish FA - Carsley played 40 times for the Republic of Ireland - have been keen on him.
But perhaps the Football Association should be having a word. If Gareth Southgate - who himself progressed from the under-21s - leaves the senior job after Euro 2024, why wouldn’t Carsley be a possible successor? Not a big enough name? England have been down the Fabio Capello/Sven Goran Eriksson road and everyone knows what happened then.
If Carsley’s team can win England’s first under-21 European Championship since 1984, it will not just be a great achievement … it should be the manager’s marker for the biggest gig in English football.