After defeating Slovakia with goals from Bellingham and Kane, England advanced to the quarterfinals of the European Championship and are expected to reach the final of the European Championship again.
In the final round of the group stage, Georgia beat Portugal 2-0 to allow England to avoid the Netherlands and meet Slovakia in the round of 16.
In fact, there have been many upsets in this European Championship, with Spain, Germany, Portugal, France, and Belgium gathered in one and a half of the zone, while the other half is only England, Italy, the Netherlands and other teams.
Legendary defender Rio Ferdinand even said, "If I were an English player, I would be so excited to see a division like this that I can't sleep." Looking at the other half, we got the best chance of reaching the final. ”
However, Italy were knocked out by Switzerland in the opening game of the quarter-finals, which gave Southgate a wake-up call: "In the knockout round, you know you can lose a game if you don't work hard enough. We've been through it many times, we know what that means, and everyone is excited about the challenge. ”
Unfortunately, Southgate was too cautious with his personnel and England players were slow to get into the groove, allowing Schrantz to open the scoring in the 25th minute. It wasn't until the fifth minute of stoppage time that Jude Bellingham scored with a barb to send the game to extra-time. Just 54 seconds into extra-time, Harry Kane headed home and England turned the lead around.
After reaching the quarter-finals, England's opponent will be Switzerland. In the other two matches in this semi-zone, the Netherlands will play Romania and Austria will play Turkey. If they can learn their lesson, then England may be able to reach the final without a hitch.
In this semi-final, England's biggest opponent may be the Netherlands, ranked 9th in the world, while in the quarter-finals, the Orange face Romania, ranked 47th.
However, teams such as Switzerland, Slovakia, Austria and Turkey will also compete for the role of the biggest dark horse. Rangnick's Austria (25th) topped the group with back-to-back defeats over Poland and the Netherlands after losing their opening game to France, while Turkey (42nd) beat Georgia and the Czech Republic in the group stage and lost to Portugal.
Switzerland (19th) are unbeaten in this European Championship, drawing with Germany in the third round of the group stage and beating Italy 2-0 in the quarter-finals. Against Switzerland in the quarter-finals, England will face a real test.