´I´m a believer in dreams´ says Southgate on eve of Euro 2024 final

Gareth Southgate does not believe in fairytales, but the England manager is a firm believer in dreams, so he said on the eve of the Euro 2024 final.

England take on Spain with history on the line in Berlin on Sunday.

Win, and the Three Lions will end a 58-year wait for a second piece of silverware. Spain, on the other hand, could become the first team to win the European Championships on four separate occasions.

England lost to Italy on penalties in the final of Euro 2020 three years ago, and while they have stuttered their way through in Germany, Southgate wants to create a special moment in time.

“I’m not a believer in fairytales, but I am a believer in dreams,” he said.

“We’ve had big dreams and felt the importance of that, but you’ve got to make those things happen.

“Fate, the late goals we’ve had, the penalties, that doesn’t equate to it being our moment. We’ve got to make it happen tomorrow.

“It’s in our hands, and it’s our performance which is the most important thing.”

England have made it into the semi-finals of three of the four major tournaments under Southgate.

To get to their second final in three years, they finished top of Group C despite winning only one match, before coming from behind to beat Slovakia and the Netherlands either side of overcoming Switzerland in a penalty shootout.

“We’ve got good experience of big matches now and I think at these moments you don’t need to say too much to the players, they don’t need motivating for a game like this – it’s about making sure the small details are right as fine margins decide these games and we’ve got to make sure we’re on the right side of them,” Southgate added.

“We’re excited for the challenge. Clearly the team have improved over the last few weeks, showed tremendous character and resilience – I have to say they have been a pleasure to work with every day on the training pitch.

“It’s been a great environment to work in and now we have a fabulous opportunity tomorrow to achieve what we set out really from the moment we left Qatar a bit earlier than we’d have liked.

“I don’t have any fear about tomorrow as I’ve been through everything.

“I want the players to have that fearlessness. If we’re not afraid to lose it gives us a better chance of winning.”

Southgate will be the third manager to take charge of more than one European Championship final (excluding replays), after Helmut Schon with Germany (1972, 1976) and Berti Vogts with Germany (1992, 1996), with all three doing so in consecutive editions. No coach has ever lost two finals in the competition before.

The Opta supercomputer rates England’s chances of success at 28.5%, with Spain the favourites at 40.7%.