Ex-England national team manager Sven-Goran Eriksson believes that the English squad has enough depth to conquer the upcoming UEFA Euro Cup title in France this summer. England performed well in the Euro qualifiers, winning all the 10 games to finish at the top of the group.
Talking to BBC on Sunday, Sven-Goran Eriksson said, “They have a good team. The qualification games, they won everything and they did it with style. They are playing good football as well, so why not?”
During Eriksson’s 5 year managerial stint with the national team, he had led the English squad in three major tournaments and believes that no matter how strong a squad is, coping up with pressure situations is the most important element in high profile tournaments. He accentuated that England needs to work on penalty shootouts as the English side has not been successful in it in the recent past and have not been able to deliver under such pressure situations.
Sven-Goran Eriksson stepped down from managing the English side after being outplayed by Portugal 1-3 on penalty shootouts in the quarter-final match of the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
‘’There is no doubt that the pressure is enormous in big tournaments and sometimes too much on the players. Coming to penalty shootouts – England has not been successful in the recent past and are not known for executing it perfectly. They feel the pressure,” he said.
“But I hope that Roy will do well and the team will make it to the semi-final or even the final and win the championship,” Eriksson concluded.