England are aiming to end 60 years of hurt by winning the World Cup this summer, and Arsenal star Declan Rice knows a thing or two about ending long waits for trophies
Declan Rice helped end Arsenal’s 22-year wait(Image: Visionhaus/Getty Images)
Declan Rice insists England are ready to emulate Arsenal by ending the long wait to win the World Cup. Rice helped Arsenal win their first Premier League title in 22 years and he says he sees the same “fire” in his England team-mates to do the same this summer.
England have not lifted the biggest prize of all since 1966 and, after close calls in recent major tournaments, Rice believes they can finally do it this time. Gunners midfielder Rice said: “I think it’s just about not getting distracted, focusing on the job. I think that’s what we’ve done at Arsenal this year. Hunger to win more, for sure.
“We obviously had a couple of close calls in the last few years finishing second, but this year, I noticed a difference in terms of blocking out the outside noise, focusing on what we know we’re good at, internally working really hard to achieve what we’ve done.
“And we’ve obviously done that. And here, with England, I feel like we’ve had two Euros finals losses. And we’ve got that fire in us to know we want to go one step further, and we believe if we can.”
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Rice also believes that England are seeing a new Thomas Tuchel in this tournament because the manager has raised his own standards which can help them achieve “great things” under him. England star Rice described him as “incredible” and singled out his team talks – including the half time team talk against Croatia which inspired them to win their Group opener in Dallas – as being key.
Rice told ITV: “I’ve always known and seen what he’s like as a manager, but I feel like he thrived in this environment. I feel like he knows that. He knows he’s one of the best. We know he’s one of the best.
“And with this squad we have, we can achieve great things with him. And that’s obviously on us to deliver it up. For sure, he’s said it as a man manager, and as an in-game manager, he’s incredible. We knew the whole game plan, we knew exactly how we wanted to play. That was the problem at half-time.
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Declan Rice is loving life under Thomas Tuchel(Image: Juan MABROMATA/AFP via Getty Images)
“Stuff we’d worked on, he hadn’t liked what he’d seen in that first half, and he said what he felt. It was just that it gave you a whole different perspective of a football match.
“It was something you wouldn’t usually hear, from a manager at half time and I think it was what we all needed to hear. You’re kind of listening to it thinking: ‘wow.’ He’s actually spot on. And we get him every day. He had a lovely, a great meeting again this morning where he said a really good few things. So it’s constantly on us.”
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