Southgate: 'Our patience was rewarded'
Match Report: England 2-1 Slovakia
Gareth Southgate believes England were rewarded for their patience as they dramatically beat Slovakia 2-1 to qualify for the quarter-finals of EURO 2024.
The Three Lions trailed 1-0 until deep into second-half stoppage time when Jude Bellingham's sensational overhead kick took the game to extra time.
Harry Kane nodded home the winner shortly after the restart and Southgate was delighted that his team never threw the towel in.
He said: "It was one of those classic England nights where we put everybody through the mill. They're a good team and it took us a long time to be able to work out how to get through their pressure. That's hard when there's anxiety in the stadium because we're behind but in the second half we did that better. We were probing and we kept being patient, the players who came on made an impact. In the end we relied on a long throw for the moment. When you push as much as we did then those moments can happen.
"We were too narrow in the first half, the solutions were wide but we struggled to connect from there. In the first half we were too slow moving the ball and we didn't create the openings we needed to create but in the second half we showed composure to keep moving the ball. Under pressure you can make bad decisions but we came close and I think a draw was probably fair in 90 minutes."
Southgate heralded Bellingham's impact, admitting he considered substituting the midfielder but refrained from doing so because he knew such heroics were possible.
The boss said: "That's him. We were thinking with 15 minutes to go he's out on his feet and should we take him off but you know the sort of impact he can have. Those moments are why you stick with him. The top players affect the big games. I never felt tonight would be the end of our tournament. With the long throw, you hope that we can cause some chaos. I think Ivan Toney was pretty disgusted when I put him on with a minute to go but he's had a big impact. We just had a feel he might be able to cause some chaos and that happened.
Simply epic.
— England (@England) June 30, 2024
WE ARE #EURO2024 QUARTER-FINALISTS! 🙌 pic.twitter.com/d8EA8wuxmO
"We'll have to assess everybody now. It's a good team we're going to play against [Switzerland] but we've got time and the lift everybody will get emotionally is huge. They've shown the character they have. We know nights like tonight have everybody on the edge of the sofa."