Published 06 June 2021 2 min read
England Men's Senior Team
Rash's memorable moment
Marcus Rashford sealed a memorable night in Middlesbrough, after leading out England as captain and then scoring the winner against Romania.
The Three Lions forward only joined the squad late last week, following his Europa League commitments with Manchester United.
But with regular skipper Harry Kane rested, boss Gareth Southgate handed the armband to Rashford for England’s final warm-up ahead of the UEFA EURO 2020 campaign.
“It’s definitely a great moment for me,” said Rashford.
“It’s something that you dream of doing when you’re a kid and today I managed to accomplish that dream.
"But today was a difficult game. We had to work hard, we had to stick together. They played out well with the ball and it was challenging defensively trying to press and win the ball back.
"We created a lot of chances, we were good from set-plays, both attacking and defensively and that’s what won us the game."
The Three Lions squad now have a final week to fine tune their preparations ahead of their EURO opener against Croatia at Wembley next Sunday.
But after this win and last week’s victory over Austria, Rashford says the feeling in the squad is strong.
“We have to have that self-belief, that self-confidence,” he added.
“But we know we have to improve, we have to improve if we want to win the tournament so we’ll keep our heads down and we’ll keep working.”
England boss Southgate echoed that sentiment too, as he assessed his team’s performance at the Riverside Stadium.
“Yes, we had chances to make it more comfortable but so did they,” he said.
“I thought [in the] first half we didn’t work hard enough without the ball really, simple as that.
“We were too stretched, didn’t press well and that meant that our back players and our midfield players had a lot of ground to cover.
“After half time I thought we improved. I think it was helpful when we went to 4-3-3 a little latter for this particular game.
“I’ve got to say for us it was a really good exercise. Players needed the minutes, we learned a lot from the game. It was good to win, but a lot to get better at.”
With no more games before the big kick-off, Southgate still has one decision to make, with a spot in his squad to fill following the withdrawal of Trent Alexander-Arnold on Friday.
“We just want to check how we are after the game, medically, and just check there’s nothing else we need to go through,” he explained.
“So we’ll make that decision over the next 24 hours.”
READ THE MATCH REPORT