Dan Burn has been speaking from the England training camp.
The Newcastle United star and his international squad players now looking forward to the first 2026 World Cup group match.
England face Croatia on Wednesday (17 June) at 9pm UK time.
Ahead of that opening match, the England defender saying that a lot of work is going into bringing a sense of togetherness to the squad.
Dan Burn: “Obviously it’s hard for me to comment on what went on when I wasn’t here, but we have made a big thing about that since the very first camp we had together, about having this brotherhood and being together.”
The England defender adding: “I feel like a lot of the time the team that end up winning tournaments like these are the teams who are close. If you look at Argentina at the last World Cup, you felt as if they were really fighting for each other. That’s what we’re wanting to do. I think it’s hard sometimes, you don’t see each other for a long amount of time and you have quite superficial conversations. It’s normally just like, ‘Hi, how are you?’. But it’s about trying to get to know each other on a deeper level. So what the staff have created at the hotel we have got now, should help along with that. There’s people that we’ve played together with before which always helps so just keep trying to build on that.”
Thomas Tuchel has talked a lot about the character of the group and not wanting selfish people impacting on it.
The England boss having been proved absolutely correct for example on leaving Harry Maguire out of his World Cup squad.
The Manchester United defender acting shamefully when breaking the manager’s confidence and leaking the fact he’d been left out, ahead of the official announcement.
Harry Maguire and his family embarrassing themselves by going on social media to cry about his omission the day before the 26 man squad was then announced.
Dan Burn stating: “For me personally, I just want to be here and help the team however possible that is. Whether I start, whether I come on, whether I don’t play a minute, I will not feel I have contributed any less than anyone else. I think that’s important. I feel like this is the type of tournament where we have players who are the stars for their clubs normally and they are going to have to take a little bit of a different role. That is leaning into that brotherhood thing again, where we are just happy for each other and happy to help out as much as we can.”
I don’t think there was ever any doubt Dan Burn wasn’t going to be in Thomas Tuchel’s squad but I bet the England boss is relieved that he brought the Newcastle United player rather than Harry Maguire.
Wednesday 17 June
Croatia v England (Dan Burn, Tino Livramento) World Cup group match 9pm ITV
Tuesday 23 June
Ghana v England (Dan Burn, Tino Livramento) World Cup group match 9pm BBC
Saturday 27 June
Panama v England (Dan Burn, Tino Livramento) World Cup group match 10pm ITV