I’ve heard a lot of talk about the difficult conditions England will face at the Azteca Stadium – but I don’t think the players will be worried about any of that.<\/p>\n
Instead of having any fear about the different tests they face, they will just be thinking ‘bring it on’. I know I would be.<\/p>\n
All the talk stops when they run out anyway, and if they play the game rather than the occasion then I think they will win.<\/p>\n
Yes, it’s going to be tough, because of the altitude and the atmosphere and everything else. Co-hosts Mexico are at home and the crowd could be as much as 80% of their fans, which is very different to anything England have faced at this tournament so far.<\/p>\n
But as a player, these are the kind of games and moments you train and work so hard for all your life because to be going to such an iconic stadium and playing in a World Cup in front of a TV audience of millions, with a place in the quarter-finals as the prize, is what you dream of as a boy.<\/p>\n
I’ve wanted to go to the Azteca since I watched the 1986 World Cup on TV as a teenager and this is the first time England have been back since losing that epic quarter-final tie to Argentina. It’s going to be an amazing spectacle as well as a unique test.<\/p>\n
I have followed England around the United States at this World Cup, and we have had the majority of fans at all four matches so far.<\/p>\n
Against DR Congo in Atlanta, around 75% of the crowd were supporting England, but this is going to feel very different and is another reason why it’s such an incredible game to look forward to.<\/p>\n
I’ll be there, co-commentating with Guy Mowbray, and am excited about it as much as the fans are. I bet the players are excited too.<\/p>\n
Yes, it’s a challenge but I would say to them to embrace it and enjoy it – be positive and show us all what you can do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I’ve heard a lot of talk about the difficult conditions England will face at the Azteca Stadium –…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-533154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}