{"id":206639,"date":"2025-10-12T04:03:31","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T04:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/206639\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T04:03:31","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T04:03:31","slug":"loftus-cheek-admits-he-stopped-expecting-to-play-for-england-again-but-has-new-target","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/206639\/","title":{"rendered":"Loftus-Cheek admits he ‘stopped expecting to play for England again’ but has new target"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ruben Loftus-Cheek has admitted that he had given up on playing for England again, but is now dreaming of a World Cup trip next year.<\/p>\n

Loftus-Cheek was recalled by England in the last international break and kept his spot for the current one<\/a>. He got his first appearance since 2018 when he came on as a substitute in the second half of England\u2019s 3-0 friendly win over Wales at Wembley on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

With the change in manager from Gareth Southgate to Thomas Tuchel, there have been some shake-ups in selection. This seems to have benefitted the 29-year-old, who is in the side on form after a positive start to the new campaign under Massimiliano Allegri at Milan.<\/p>\n

\u2018I stopped expecting to play for England again\u2019<\/p>\n

Loftus-Cheek spoke during an interview with The Independent<\/a> about being back in the England fold again under Tuchel, someone he knows well from the German coach\u2019s time at Chelsea.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a long time. Of course, a lot has happened in that time, starting with the injury. So I kind of stopped expecting to play for England again after so long away, but I\u2019m really happy to be back involved in the set-up and getting some minutes on the pitch today, which was good,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a strange feeling after so long, but happy. I think it\u2019s good to have a goal. Whether you focus on that right now, I\u2019m not sure. I think you have to focus on what you\u2019re doing at your club.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is still a long way and I think for me, first and foremost, (my focus) is to stay fit, stay healthy and keep playing well for my club. If I do that, I think I\u2019ve got a good chance and who knows what can happen. I mean, you always want a dream, so it\u2019s in my head, but it\u2019s not at the front right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"loftus-cheek<\/p>\n

On Tuchel, he added: \u201cWe shared some good times together at Chelsea, winning trophies. It\u2019s good to be back in England with the manager. I know what he likes and wants and demands. So there\u2019s nothing new for me in that sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s good to be back and playing under him again. You always see he\u2019s a very, very intelligent manager and he studies the opponents very well and gives us an insight of what we\u2019re going to face and how to play against the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gives you a complete picture of what is to come and that\u2019s what you want from a coach. He is a fantastic coach and you can see the hard work we\u2019re putting in over these last couple of games \u2013 we\u2019ve been playing really well so we hope to kick on and keep that going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ruben Loftus-Cheek has admitted that he had given up on playing for England again, but is now dreaming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-206639","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}