Gareth Southgate has made clear that there will not be another Baden-Baden as England move to finalise their base camp and training ground for the European Championship in Germany next summer.
When England last went to Germany for a major tournament – the 2006 World Cup – they stayed in the Black Forest spa resort of Baden-Baden and it became a media circus with the players’ wives, girlfriends and family members centre stage. The finals are remembered as much for the off-field chaos as England’s travails on it; Sven-Göran Eriksson’s team were knocked out by Portugal in the quarter-finals.
Southgate wants a quiet retreat for him and the squad, with top-level training facilities – having prioritised something similar at his previous two tournaments outside England. At the 2018 World Cup in Russia, England stayed in out-of-the-way Repino, in forestland 45 minutes outside Saint Petersburg, while at the Qatar World Cup last year, they holed up in Al-Wakrah to the south of Doha.
Southgate will, as ever, want the players’ families to be a part of the collective experience but there is no danger of a Baden-Baden repeat. “Well, no,” Southgate replied, when the prospect was put to him. “I wasn’t involved in that tournament so I don’t know how all that was but we have a great environment with our players.
“We want their families to be able to go and enjoy the tournament as well. We normally welcome them in at various times. It changes the dynamic of the hotel, especially if the kids come in, and I think those elements are important for the players.
“We really want somewhere where we can be a little bit on our own. We need that nice contrast of relaxation and areas where we can work. You want to minimise travel where you can. Our staff at the FA are really good at picking those venues that I think the players will enjoy and will feel comfortable in. You basically want to be somewhere where everything that’s going on around you … you can zone out from, really. But somewhere with facilities that are good for working.”
The Football Association has made trips to Germany to assess potential bases and will choose one after the group phase draw is made in Hamburg on 2 December and the match venues are known.
“There is basically a [Uefa] catalogue and you’ve got to get in early, if you like, on certain venues or you can try and go off the catalogue and do something different,” Southgate said. “We’ve had both options available to us and we are looking forward to finalising all of our plans.”
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Southgate said he was relaxed about the draw. “It doesn’t matter, really, in the end,” he said. “There look like being really strong teams in pot two … pot three looks like it could be very strong. In the [last] Euros, we had Croatia in with us and we managed to navigate that. We’ve just got to be ready for whatever comes our way.”