England beat Germany to win U21 trophy again: Lee Carsley’s side underline transformation in English football | Football News

When England ended its expectations of 39 years to become European champions at the U21 level in 2023, it may be said that this should happen at some point. But keep the trophy in 2025? It suggests that something more happens here.

Lee Carsley’s England team threatened to explode Germany to Bratislava before seeing their opponents come from two to take the match in overtime. They have always found a way, on their luck and a wave of belief that this is exactly what England does now.

Captain James McATEE was appointed game player, while Harvey Elliott won the tournament player award. But everywhere on the ground, among the replacements and the staff of the canoe, there were faces responsible for making this historic victory possible.

Elliot Anderson was magnificent in the midfield, but the 17 players to appear in the last contribution, supported by those who did not do so. With Thomas Tuchel looking from the stands in Slovakia, he will have seen the richness of talents available to England.

The history of these age group tournaments was once one of the abandonments, of a nation not helping its attitude towards its own national game. But these withdrawals take a different context in the middle of success, rather emphasizing an amazing talent depth.

It is not only that Liam Delap went to the club World Cup with Chelsea or that Jobe Bellingham took the same step with the new club Borussia Dortmund. Jamie Gittens was also in the United States. Jarrad Branthwaite was injured, Taylor Harwood-Bellis too.

Then there are the eligible players already called to the senior team of Thomas Tuchel. Jude Bellingham, Cole Palmer, Levi Colwill, Morgan Rogers, Noni Madueke, James Trafford, Rico Lewis, Lewis Hall, Kobbie Mainooo, Adam Wharton and Myles Lewis-Skelly.

Boked by opportunities abroad

It is not only the depth of the talent now, but the extent of their experiences. Over the past two seasons, half of the starters of the outdoor field in the final have played a match of the Champions League against Paris Saint-Germain, the reigning champions of European clubs.

Nine of them have already played Premier League football, with the only Starter Outfield not to have done so being the central defender Charlie Cresswell, who rather spent the past season regularly playing for Toulouse in the higher division of French football.

This indicates a trend within the group. Jonathan Rowe, the scorer of the winning goal in the final, with only his second touch after coming as a substitute, played for Marseille. Brooke Norton-Cuffy, also involved in this goal, is in Genoa.

Samuel ILING-JUNIOR, another to get out of the bench, spent part of last season in Bologna, having previously appeared 45 times for Juventus. Jarell Quansah of Liverpool seems ready to become the signature of the Bayer Leverkusen club record in this transfer window.

What some feared in the past could prove to be a vicious circle for English football – the strength of the Premier League preventing the opportunities of young domestic talents – has become virtuous. Players have better experiences than ever.

This reflects their capacity, the work carried out in terms of development in the club game, but it is also a self-fulfilling prophecy. The European parties recognize not only the potential, but they help to provide the platform which allows these players to maximize it.

England obtains the style mixture

It is a significant transformation that cannot be overestimated. Covering this tournament a decade ago, above the border in Chechy in the sleeping city of Olomouc, England, ended at the bottom of their group under Sir Gareth Southgate, success still seems so far.

In 2015, there was also talent. Harry Kane and John Stones were there. Most of the team would win senior ceilings. But none of them had played abroad at the time of the tournament. The culture of the national sides of England was a world far from that.

It is a group with rhythm and physicity, with ball carriers like Anderson. But, in a quarter of work that once seemed beyond young players in England, the Carsley team also finished the tournament with the best pass precision, reflecting the change of approach.

Above all, rather than simply imitating the play of possession which has long been fundamental for, say, the style of Spain, there is a balance at their work, a philosophy that feels theirs. England, for example, has countered impressively throughout.

James Beadle, the goalkeeper, watched Jay Stansfield for a long time. Cresswell was happy to launch the ball if necessary, but was also involved in a 34th minute scanning movement that started with Beadle rolling the ball in Anderson and ended with a shot.

Carsley pushes after Greece

For Carsley, as well as its players, the manner of it has shed light on its progress. In October, he was criticized on a scale that would have shocked him after choosing an experimental alignment in his role as a goalkeeper with the senior team and lost against Greece.

“This is something to which I will come back in two or three months and that I will be better for that,” he said at the time of this defeat of Wembley. In Bratislava, eight months later, he turned out, he proved his standing point by certifying this historical success for the U21 side.

Returning to this role, he reduced a more confident figure, insisting, for example, that the victory of the tournament would only represent success. There may be a tendency to hide behind this word “development” at the age group, but U21 football is the last step.

It is a question of preparing the players for the requests that will come soon and no one can deny that Carsley did this. He spoke of transforming hope into belief and it is clear that England entered this tournament with the right mentality to go to the end and win it.

Two years ago, they did it without even conceding a goal. This time it was more delicate but no less satisfactory for that. They stained in the group phase but became the tournament and passed despite their return to their three games with direct elimination.

Spain has gathered only one of the two necessary to level it in the quarter-finals, but the Netherlands only equalized for England to resume. In the final, Germany came from two below, but even it did not break their belief. Carsley was able to turn to the bench.

The man himself, well supported by the legend of England, Ashley Cole, whose own reputation of coach develops with this victory, denied that he “pilot the flag” for local coaches, but the reality is that, as for the players, there is now greater respect there.

Carsley online for the best work?

The two previous Spanish managers to raise this trophy – Julen Lopetegui and Luis de la Fuente – both continued the highest post, the latter winning Euro 2024. The consensus was that Carsley had missed the opportunity to press his own complaint with this Greece game.

But not only he won the other five of his six games in charge, barely waded at this level, but he learned. In private, Carsley worked to become more informed of the media. His changes in play become better with experience. The atmosphere has changed again.

The clamor for a proven winner to take England over the line was understandable after failing so many times under Southgate. But there is already an appreciation that the appointment of a tactician abroad does not see with guarantees of glory, after all.

Now Carsley seems well placed in both cases. If Tuchel offers a superb World Cup victory next summer and wins another crack in an elite club, it is the successful boss U21 which will be the candidate of continuity, the man perfectly placed to rely on this inheritance.

If, as it is more likely, Tuchel is not lacking in 2026, Carsley clearly demonstrated that the talent pipeline flows not only and that young players in England can thrive in the shirt, but that there is a coach who is ready and able to help them show it.