Ignore the past, Southgate tells Three Lions ahead  Germany clash

Gareth Southgate has urged his England players to make their own history rather than worry about past failures when they face Germany in the Euro 2020 last 16.

Southgate’s side host Germany at Wembley on Tuesday in the latest chapter of a long-running rivalry with the Germans.

England won the 1966 World Cup final against West Germany at Wembley, but since then major tournament success against Die Mannschaft has been hard to come by.

Knocked out of the 1970, 1990 and 2010 World Cups by the Germans, England were also beaten by them in the Euro 96 semi-finals at Wembley.

Southgate missed a crucial penalty in that shoot-out loss 25 years ago and the possibility of another defeat to their arch rivals could weigh heavily on his players.

But the England manager wants the team to focus on their own qualities, rather than fear history repeating itself.

“I don’t need to demystify it,” Southgate said of the rivalry with Germany. “The history is an irrelevance for them.

“We’ve got boys born into the 2000s. It’s of no consequence to them what we did in, you know, Peter Bonetti in 1970 and what happened in 1990 and so on.

“Of course, they’re watching that stuff and getting a bit of an understanding of it but it’s not something we’re speaking to them about.

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“This team have put down lots of historical performances in the last couple of years, made their own history, made their own stories and this is how they should view this game.

“It’s an opportunity. We’ve only won one knockout match in a European Championship as a country, so they’ve got a great chance to go and be the first team since 1996 to do that.”