Answering children's questions about England at Euro 2024 - feet, dogs and what if they lose? (2024)

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There has been no shortage of questions asked about England’s Euro 2024 campaign, but for this article we turned to the next generation of England supporters (and the one after that) to tell us what they wanted to know about what’s happened so far.

Gareth Southgate’s side face Switzerland today (Saturday) in the quarter-finals, but before heading along to the game The Athletic’s England writers attempted to explain, among other things, why Harry Kane keeps trying to be a midfielder, what it will be like if they lose, who can do the most keepy-uppies, who has the biggest feet and how many of the players have dogs.

“Why do England have great players but can’t work together?” Elizabeth, 13

It’s a great question! Ultimately it’s because football is a team sport and a team can be more — or less — than the sum of its parts. For years, England struggled with this: they often had very good players but without being a strong, unified, happy team. In the first few years under Gareth Southgate, it felt like he was really good at turning the individual players into a good team but this time it feels like we’ve stepped back in time a bit — the players don’t have the same unity, togetherness and teamwork they used to, and England are less than the sum of their parts again.

Jack Pitt-Brooke

“Do they eat sandwiches and chocolate at half-time?” Sam, 6 and three quarters
“I think they eat chocolate biscuits and beer after a game and that’s why they’ve been bad. What do you think they eat?” Albie, 6

My old coach always used to give us jelly-babies at half-time — I can confirm it didn’t work and we were rubbish. At international level though, they have something even tastier — pickle juice!

Let’s be honest, it tastes disgusting, but it’s one of the most efficient ways there is of refuelling while loading up on salts — preventing them from cramping up late in the second half. If anything, football is slightly late to this, with cyclists wise to this trick for years.

It is after the game that footballers load up on treats such as pizza and chocolate bars — often laid out in the dressing room for when they return — though their desire to get back to the training base on the same evening means there isn’t that much time to gorge.

Jacob Whitehead

“Why does Harry Kane keep trying to be a midfielder” Arthur, 14

Good question, Arthur! I think it’s because Kane is such a good player that he can play well as a midfielder as well as playing as a striker. When you think of the things that you want from a good midfielder — being able to pass the ball forward to team-mates who score a goal — Kane is as good as any other English player at doing that.

In the last few years, England have had a lot of success with Kane doing this, just like he used to for Tottenham. (Remember how many goals Spurs scored where Kane would pass the ball forward for Son Heung-min to score.)

The problem for England right now is that they don’t have someone like Marcus Rashford or Raheem Sterling who can play ahead of Kane and who he can pass to. Maybe if they had Jarrod Bowen or Ollie Watkins up there, Kane could pass them the ball and the tactic would work better again.

Jack Pitt-Brooke

“Which player has got the largest feet?” Rufus, 8, and Olive, 5

That’s a great question. I didn’t know the answer. If I was guessing, I would have said it was probably someone like Lewis Dunk, because he’s the tallest player in the squad. Or one of the goalkeepers, maybe.

But I asked someone in the England camp — and he came out with a surprising answer. He didn’t know for certain, but he is fairly sure Joe Gomez has the biggest feet and the biggest boots.

Oliver Kay

“Who can do the most keepy-uppies?” Archie, 8

Hi, Archie. The players are so good at keepy-uppies, they don’t even count them up — or some would be in the hundreds! Everyone agrees though that Phil Foden is the best at this skill. They say the same at his club Manchester City, too. Left foot, right foot, knee head, chest — he can use almost any part of his body to stop the balling bouncing on the floor. You might even see him balancing it on his neck or across his shoulders if you are lucky.

@philfoden

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In the old days, keepy-uppies were simply about — as the name suggests — keeping the ball up in the air. Now though, the skill level is much higher than when I was your age.

The best I have ever seen — and you won’t be surprised — was Lionel Messi when he was at Barcelona. Before every game, he would line up with one of his team-mates, a Brazilian player called Dani Alves, and they would have one ball between them. They would start with keepy-uppies and then volley it all the way to where the other player was standing. When I say volley, I mean they were standing a long way apart. The ball never hit the floor. It was their own form of long-range keepy-uppies. Each would do about 10 or so, then volley it to the other. It was fantastic. I used to love watching that routine and how skilful they were.

Jack Grealish is pretty good too but, in the current England squad, Foden would be the best.

Daniel Taylor

“What will it be like if they lose?” William, 9

I think everyone will be very sad if they lose to Switzerland on Saturday. It will be the end of England’s campaign in this Euros and they won’t have another major tournament until the World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico two years from now. It might also be the end of Gareth Southgate as England’s manager, which would make people very sad too, because he’s done such a good job over the last eight years.

But it’s important to remember that England haven’t won a major tournament since 1966 and so it’s not a failure by these players if they don’t win this one. And that World Cup, which feels a long way away now, will be here before we know it.

Jack Pitt-Brooke

“How many of the England team have dogs?” Rosa, 10

Now this is a proper question, and boy oh boy have I got an answer you’ll be pleased with. The FA has done lots of work to ensure that each player’s bedroom in their Blankenhain base in Germany for this tournament feels homely — which includes hanging AI-generated pictures of their dogs on their wall.

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Star of the show is Conor Gallagher’s chow chow, but there are also dogs belonging to Jordan Pickford (cavapoo), Eberechi Eze (shar pei), Harry Kane (chocolate labrador), Lewis Dunk (two co*ckapoos), Aaron Ramsdale (another chow chow), Dean Henderson (rottweiler) and Anthony Gordon (it’s some sort of fluffy thing, I don’t know the breed but I know for a fact it is named Barney).

Important research shows that a further seven players also own dogs — creating a total of 15 England players (or 58 per cent).

Phil Foden’s is named Carabao after the cup.

It is understood that other players sent in photos of their cats, but it is unconfirmed if there are any gerbil portraits hanging up in a player’s room.

This really is a team of dog lovers — Declan Rice, Gordon and Gallagher took part in a Crufts-style dog training challenge last month as part of Channel 4’s coverage. Their partners? Jack Growlish, Harry Canine and Collie Watkins.

Jacob Whitehead

“Why can’t we change the squad during the tournament like in a cricket Test match series? So we can call a new left-back if ours is injured” Freddie, 15

It’s a very good question, Freddie! This is just the way it’s always been done in football, and maybe they think that if they allowed people to change squads for injuries then teams would just chop and change their squads all the time just to gain an advantage. I suppose that by allowing 26 players in a squad (it used to be 23) they mean that teams can’t have any complaints if players do get injured or suspended. They should always have enough available reserves!

Jack Pitt-Brooke

“Why can’t the men and women play together? Then we would be better and win” Molly, 10

Great question, Molly. The simple answer is that they’ve always played separately. In fact, you might not know this, but for many years girls and women weren’t even allowed to play at all in England. For nearly 50 years, between 1921 and 1970, women’s football was banned by the Football Association. Isn’t that terrible?

To be honest, I’m happy that there are separate men’s and women’s games and tournaments. It means we get twice as many competitions to watch — two Champions Leagues, two World Cups, two European Championships and so on. And it means we got the chance to see England win the Euros in 2022, something the men’s team have still never done!

Oliver Kay

“Why is it always the same line-up?” Hannah, 13
“Why is it always so tense and he still doesn’t make any subs?” Ada, 13

I asked Gareth Southgate before the Slovakia game if he was going to make small changes to the team or big ones, and he said that he didn’t want to disrupt the team too much. His view was that the more the players play together, the more they will get used to each other, and be able to combine better on the pitch.

He only made one change for that game in the end, but given how badly England played, it sounds like he will make more changes for the Switzerland game. And I suppose the issue about making substitutions is connected to that: Southgate trusts his favourite players to get the job done, although he was very impressed with how all his subs did in extra time against Slovakia!

Jack Pitt-Brooke

“How did England beat Slovakia?” Wilfred, 4

Hi, Wilfred! Good question! The most important thing was that they kept trying to win even though they were playing badly. They stuck to it and they never gave up. Of course, they were a bit lucky to score when they did — they could easily have lost the game — but afterwards, Gareth Southgate was proud of how they kept believing in themselves at difficult moments. And once they scored that first goal, you could see they were a lot happier and it didn’t take them very long at all to score the second. Which goes to show the importance of keeping trying all the way until the end!

Jack Pitt-Brooke

“Can you teach me how to do a rainbow flick?” Mary, 6

I’m sure you could find a better coach than me, Mary! But I’ll do my best.

Do you have a foot that you prefer to kick with? Well, let’s start with the other foot, your weaker one. Put your weaker foot just in front of the ball so that your heel is just brushing the ball.

Then put your stronger foot just behind the ball — but side-on, so that your instep is brushing it.

And then, just bend each leg slightly, so that they’re a bit looser and… in one very quick movement, you need to use your stronger foot to drag the ball up the back of the other leg… and then try to flick your heel up, which should send the ball up into the air and, ideally, over your head so that it drops in front of you.

But it’s easier said than done. And if it doesn’t work, don’t despair! Professional players hardly ever try it because, to be honest, it’s not very practical to do it in a match. And their coach would probably tell them off!

One of the few players who used to try it was Brazilian international Neymar — and when he tried it, he very often used to get kicked because people on the other team got annoyed by him using party tricks!

Oliver Kay

“When does this end?” Anya, 3

My girlfriend is 22 years older than you, Anya, and has been asking exactly the same question.

Assuming that this isn’t an existential question about the nature of sporting consumption, the basic answer is July 14 — just eight days away (though England will be out if they lose today).

But don’t worry, the Olympic football tournaments, one for men and one for women, start just 10 days after that.

Jacob Whitehead

(Top photo: Fans supporting England ahead of Euro 2024; by Morgan Harlow/The FA via Getty Images)