Euro 2020 is ‘England’s tournament’ after victory over Germany, says Rio Ferdinand

The Three Lions will face either Sweden or Ukraine in the quarter-finals of Euro 2020 while the tournament’s semi-finals and final will be held at Wembley

Rio Ferdinand said England are ‘making their own luck’ (BBC)

England’s route to the Euro 2020 final has fallen into place following their 2-0 win over Germany at Wembley, according to former internationals Rio Ferdinand and Alan Shearer.

Goals from Raheem Sterling and Harry Kane saw Gareth Southgate’s advance to the quarter-finals, where they will face either Sweden or Ukraine in Rome. The winner of that match would face either Czech Republic or Denmark in the semi-finals.

England deserved their victory on a tense evening at Wembley but benefitted from some good fortune after Germany’s Thomas Muller wasted a golden opportunity to level the match late on, and Ferdinand believes it showed why England are now favourites to reach the final.

“This feels like it’s going to be our tournament,” Ferdinand said on the BBC. “I don’t want to be jumping the gun but things are just happening and falling into place for us.

“You need a bit of luck and you need to ride your luck at times during tournaments, and we’re getting those little bits. But also, we’re making our own luck. We are hard to beat.”

Ferdinand added: “We hadn’t won our opening game. We got rid of that. We hadn’t beaten Germany. We got rid of that.

“This team are breaking down barriers. Everyone was saying we’re too negative, we don’t take risks. Southgate has a game plan to be hard to beat. These guys are playing for their manager. You can tell.”

Former England striker Shearer, who was part of the team that reached the semi-finals of Euro 96, said that England will never have a better opportunity of winning the tournament, due to the draw that now awaits them.

“If you could have picked something like that then you would have,” Shearer told the BBC. “As I said before the game there’s a lot of talk saying we can’t finish top because we might play France or Portugal or whoever. You’ve got to go on and see what happens. We’ve beaten Germany and we’ve done it in an impressive way today.

“The draw is decent I would say. England will never, ever, ever have a better opportunity of winning the Euros than this opportunity now. They’re at Wembley, I know they go away for the next game but if they’re lucky enough to get to a final that would have been six games at Wembley and you can’t ask for any more than that with an atmosphere like this. They’re right behind the players and the players are responding.”

Former Germany striker Jurgen Klinsmann added: ”You have to recognise the moment. This is England’s moment. You’ve got to realise if you go through the quarter-final you play a semi-final here, and you maybe have a sell-out crowd in the final.

“It’s not going to be an easy road to the final, but it’s doable. Now they have showed the belief, Harry Kane broke through and the energy is high. You’ve got to take advantage of that and win this all.”