Euorpean Under-21 Championships 215: Jack Butland confident of successful end to long apprenticeship in England's ranks

Under-21s' captain believes their team spirit can deliver glory

Jack Butland joins in a coaching session during a visit to Heyrovskeho School in Olomouc this week (GETTY IMAGES)

When Jack Butland goes over his summers spent with the junior England teams, he realises that it has been eight years – going back to when he was 14 – since he last had a summer like any normal teenager, when the days are long and there is nothing much to do but while away the hours.

Butland, now 22 and the captain of Gareth Southgate’s England Under-21s at the European Championship in the Czech Republic this month, has had one of the longest apprenticeships in the game. He has played for England’s Under-16s, Under-17s, Under-19s, Under-20s and Under-21s as well as earning one cap for the seniors. He has represented Great Britain at the 2012 London Olympics and played for six different clubs, including six separate loan spells.

Next season he hopes finally to establish himself as Stoke City’s No 1 with the impending departure of Asmir Begovic, potentially to Chelsea. This time next year he will most likely be at Euro 2016 with Roy Hodgson’s squad. “I’ve got 2017 pictured as a month off,” he joked. And in the meantime there is the small matter of trying to win his second junior European title with the Under-21s this summer.

Butland has been successful before with England, primarily as the goalkeeper in the Under-17s team that won the 2010 European Championship – a squad from which six players have progressed to become part of the current Under-21s. He was also the penalty shootout hero in the 2009 Montaigu tournament final in France when England Under-16s beat Germany and Butland saved two of the Germans’ penalties.

No one could say he has not served his time. The big goalkeeper from Bristol, who came through the Birmingham City academy, has had a long road to the top. He was a late call-up for Hodgson’s Euro 2012 squad and played one half for the senior team against Italy in Bern in August of that year.

He points out that, although he has had a peripatetic career so far, he has managed to play 25 games on average a season at everywhere from Cheltenham Town to Barnsley, Leeds and most recently Derby County, adding up to a career total of around 130.

The dream for Butland is that one day he will challenge Joe Hart, six years his senior, for the No 1 shirt in the senior team and perhaps eventually succeed him. For now, he is thinking about what he will say to his team-mates, many of whom he has known all his teenage years, before they take on Portugal tonight in Uherske Hradiste in the first of their group games.

“Something similar to the last game against Belarus [which England won 1-0 last week],” he reflected. “We’ve come a long way. There’s no pressure on us. We can only gain. If we perform, we gain – it’s as simple as that. We’ve got to bring it. I believe in everyone, and everyone believes in each other. And if we perform as we can, we can go far in this tournament.”

For many of the players who, like Butland, will be ineligible for the Under-21s after this tournament, this is the final launch into their senior professional careers. The modern fashion is that, for all but a few, the breakthrough into Premier League first teams comes that bit later, and so it has proved with Butland. But on the eve of this tournament there is belief that they can mark their last days among the kids with a trophy.

“We have things that we live by as a group,” Butland said. “First was to enjoy coming to England, then it was qualify, now it is to win the Euros. At the end, it is to play for the seniors. There is always a bigger goal and we can reach that by performing well in this tournament. Without doubt that is a goal for everyone.

“It is irrelevant where players are playing or whether they have played in the Champions League or not, this group has the quality. We have the togetherness and belief that we can beat anyone.”

Butland is very much the 21st-century footballer, comfortable talking to the media about the pitfalls as well as the triumphs of his career and open about the benefits of fine-tuning the mind as well as the body. Butland sees the sports psychologist Tom Bates – “not an appointment”, he said, rather “it is a friend”.

“I don’t see him regularly, but it is important to have people ask you questions,” he adds. “You find out a bit more about yourself and what you feel. You can always sit there and say ‘I want to win this’ or ‘I need to do that’. But when you have someone there – not doubting you, but asking questions – it is vital.

“Everyone has different ways of going about things. Some will not want to see a psychologist in their entire career or life, some people enjoy it. That is the individuality. If you are ticking, then the team does. For me, it is important.”

This is the time of the tournament when the belief in the Under-21s squad is running high and anything is possible. Much has been made of the solidarity of the group compared with some of the reluctant tourists of two years ago in Israel, when Butland also played. He compares the current spirit to that of 2010 with the Under-17s.

“That’s incredibly high in my memories, that winning feeling, a together squad, with your friends,” he said. “You can’t beat that feeling.”

England have not won a game at the Under-21s finals in two tournaments. This has the potential to be a great coming-of-age summer – but they really have to be successful first.