Luke Shaw insists England’s young guns are primed to fire the nation to Euro 2024 glory.
Gareth Southgate’s side face Spain in Sunday’s final at Berlin’s Olympiastadion, looking to end a 58-year wait for a major men’s trophy.
Having lost the Euro 2020 final on penalties to Italy, Southgate has already taken England closer than anyone else to emulating Alf Ramsey’s 1966 World Cup winners.
However, he switched things up for the finals in Germany, calling up 12 players who had no major tournament experience, while half of his 26-man squad had not been included in his 2022 World Cup selection.
At an average age of 26.1, England had the third-youngest squad at Euro 2024 but Shaw, who opened the scoring in the final against Italy last time out, is clearly a believer in the mantra of ‘if you’re old enough, you’re good enough’.
“To be honest I don’t think they need too much,” he said. “There’s a lot of young heads but I think with a massive amount of experience.
“I think the young heads here have been involved in a lot of big games and are in very big teams that are used to playing in big games and fighting for trophies, so I think they don’t need too much.
“It’s more about giving them the confidence and the belief and that’s what all of us have to have.
“We have to have confidence and belief that we can go into this game tomorrow and win it because Spain will have that and they have always had that.
“For us it’s about bringing the confidence into the younger lads to express themselves in what will be one of the biggest games of their lives.
“The experience of going through one before has definitely helped. I think everyone feels a lot more calm.
“We know the situation that the game we’re going into, the occasion, we’ve been here before. So, it’s definitely different this time.
“Being through it before definitely helps, so I think we’ve got a lot of experiences from last time, so it’s a lot different this time.”
One player of the current squad with a lasting experience from the previous final is Bukayo Saka – the sole survivor of the three players who missed in the shoot-out loss to Italy.
Along with both Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho, Saka received racist abuse on social media following his miss but has gone on to star for Arsenal.
He was also named England player of the year in 2022 and 2023 and scored the late equaliser that took the Euro 2024 quarter-final with Switzerland to penalties – where this time he succeeded from the spot.
“I think it is extremely impressive, it definitely shows the elite mentality that he has,” Shaw said of the reaction from Saka, who is a close friend of the Manchester United left-back.
“He, of course, sets his standards extremely high and rightly so.
“He is an unbelievable player with the right mentality and putting them two things together always goes well.
“For me, I’m extremely close to him and seeing his journey and what he has been through and seeing him come out on the other side.
“He is one of our most important players and in the final he is going to be important again.
“I think the bond we have here is extremely special. It’s not one I’ve been a part of before.
“I think everyone is so together, everyone is really close and it feels like a big family and for all of us to win it together would be – of course – a very special feeling.”
