Euro 2024: 1966 World Cup video inspired England – Southgate

Gareth Southgate believes a video shown to the England team during their victorious 1966 World Cup campaign helped inspire Sunday’s 2-1 last-16 victory over Slovakia.

The Three Lions recovered from Ivan Schranz’s 25th-minute opener thanks to a superb overhead kick from Jude Bellingham in the 95th minute that forced extra time. Harry Kane then headed home just 60 seconds into extra time to send Switzerland into Saturday’s quarter-final in Düsseldorf.

After the match, in which Southgate made five substitutions, he referred to a video shown to the players at St George’s Park before the tournament which explained the importance of each member of the squad that won England’s only major honour.

“We showed the players a presentation about 1966 and how Geoff Hurst (who scored a hat-trick in England’s 4-2 final win over West Germany) hadn’t played until the quarter-finals and how tough the team had been,” Southgate said. “From the start, the players who came into the games had a big impact. They were ready, they trained well and all the guys who came on played a big part in creating goals, steadying the ship. (Eberechi) Eze defending at the far post as a left-back for a period. Ezri Konsa coming out to stop crosses coming into the box at the end.

“Conor Gallagher ran out to stop the ball coming into our zone. That’s the mindset they have and that’s what got us over the line today.

“We just wanted to point out that tournaments take you to strange places, on difficult routes. The team didn’t always fly. The team, I’m sure, would have been criticised at the beginning, so it was just a bit of perspective.

“We wanted to highlight the value of the team, the fact that some players we thought we would see develop like Jimmy Greaves end up playing a different role. Support from players like Jimmy Armfield.

“It’s one of the things we’ve done to recognise the value of the group. We always refer to those moments because that’s what makes a winning team. We still have a long way to go.”