The two sides meet in the Euro 2024 quarter-finals on Saturday. Gareth Southgate knows stumbling but spirited England have to raise their game if they are to stand a chance of beating “outstanding” Switzerland in Saturday’s Euro 2024 quarter-final. A trip to Dusseldorf awaits after Jude Bellingham came to the rescue with a 95th-minute overhead equaliser against wily Slovakia on Sunday before Harry Kane sealed a 2-1 extra-time win.
England were seconds away from their tournament coming to an end in humiliating fashion, only to squeak through to a fourth successive major quarter-final under Southgate. The fighting spirit was as impressive as their overall performance was alarming in Gelsenkirchen, with far better needed from the Euro 2020 runners-up against the Swiss on Saturday. “You build on the spirit that they’ve shown, the belief that they’ll have gained from that,” Southgate said.
“Equally, we’re not naive. We’re going to play a team that have looked outstanding, not just in this tournament but for quite a while as well. That’s going to be a big tactical challenge for us.
“We know that the level of our game will need to be higher, but there was a spirit and there was a togetherness that has been building. “We’ve had a lot of problems to solve through this whole lead into the camp, through the tournament. “We’re putting a plaster over different things and giving young players opportunities.
We’re somehow finding a way. “I can imagine how.