Gareth Southgate warns of fixture ‘mess’ as Champions League progress causes worry

England play Netherlands in Guimaraes on Thursday 6 June, before a potential Nations League final in Porto on Sunday 9 June. But the Champions League final is on Saturday 1 June in Madrid

Gareth Southgate has warned that England are facing a “mess” in terms of their preparation for the UEFA Nations League in June because of English teams’ success in the Champions League.

England play Netherlands in Guimaraes on Thursday 6 June, before a potential Nations League final in Porto on Sunday 9 June. But the Champions League final is on Saturday 1 June in Madrid. And with English teams having performed so well in the Champions League this season, it is increasingly likely that some of Southgate’s players will be involved at the Wanda Metropolitano. This raises the prospect of Southgate trying to rely on players who are physically and emotionally drained when he faces the Dutch.

Southgate jokingly quoted his good friend Alastair Clarkson, the coach of AFL side Hawthorn, with whom he attended a coaching course and the Super Bowl in the US in 2018: “F**king good luck with that, mate!”

Ultimately England will start to prepare in late May at St George’s Park before the squad flies to Portugal on Wednesday 5 June. “It will be a little bit like the World Cup in that players will finish at different times, so we will have to have some preparation here, in terms of the pre-camps,” Southgate said. “And it could be a mess. Let’s say if two of our teams made it to the Champions League final, then we wouldn’t see them, at best, until the Monday before we play on the Thursday.”

Southgate doubts that this would give his stars enough time to recover to be able to play the Netherlands at their best in Portugal. He left open the possibility of whether they would even be available for that game. Last year, Jordan Henderson and Trent Alexander-Arnold joined up late with the England squad to prepare for the World Cup, having played in the Champions League final in Kiev in 26 May. Then they had to get up to speed with the rest of the England squad already ahead of them.

“So, “good luck with that”, as an Aussie coach I know says. “F**king good luck with that, mate!” We have been in a semi-final, we qualified [four] months ago and what a great opportunity to win something. And then you don’t actually get the team together? And with the emotion of that game [Champions League final], can those players even realistically play on the Thursday night for us? We’ll have to work out all of that out as that goes on.”

“But, fundamentally, our preparation will be here [St Georges Park]. Broken up with breaks at home to give them space that they would all need, bar the players that will play to the very end. They would all need a period where they would need to psychologically switch off, and we’d have to look at Champions League final players when we got to it.”