The head coach of the England football team, Gareth Southgate had said Germany and Brazil are the benchmarks for his team because of how consistent the teams have been in major tournaments.
Note that despite how talented the England football team has been, the last time the team won a major title was when the team won the FIFA World Cup in 1966. Since then, the team has finished fourth in the tournament in 1990 and 2018.
Even in the European Championship (Euro), the England football team has not been impressive despite the abundance of football talents in the country. In the history of the tournament, the Three Lions of England are yet to win it, the best achievement they have recorded in the tournament was finishing as runners-up in 2020 and finishing in third place in 1968 and 1996.
Also, in the UEFA Nations League, the England football team has been able to finish in third place in the 2018-2019 season.
But as for Germany, the country has won the FIFA World Cup four times. The last time they won the tournament was in 2014. Aside from that, they finished as runners-up in the tournament four times and in the third-place four times.
Germany has won the UEFA Championship three times, finished runners-up three times, and in third place three times. The country also won the FIFA Confederation Cup once (2017).
While Brazil has won the World Cup five times and finished runners-up, third place, and fourth place twice respectively. They have won Copa America 9 times, finished runners-up 12 times, third place 7 times, and fourth place 3 times.
Brazil has also won the FIFA Confederation Cup four times, finished runnersup, and in fourth place once respectively.
Ahead of the UEFA Nations League A3 match against Germany on Tuesday, June 7, 2022, at 19:45, coach Gareth Southgate noted that both Germany and Brazil are the benchmark to becoming trophy-winning sides.
Though Southgate led England football team to beat Germany in Euro 2020 for the first time in 55 years, the coach stressed that even if England beat Germany at Allianz Arena on Tuesday evening that would not be enough to conclude that England would do well in the forthcoming FIFA World Cup in Qatar which will start in November.
“For me, Germany and Brazil are still the benchmarks in terms of countries who have regularly and consistently won tournaments,” the England football team head coach said in a press conference on Monday.
“Everyone will talk about the 5-1 here, but they ended up in the World Cup final on the back of that World Cup qualifying campaign.
“You have to respect what they have been and what they are as a country, in footballing terms. That mentality is what we’re trying to create.
“But it won’t define where we are in five months. If we beat them tomorrow, that doesn’t mean we will be fine in five months. A lot will happen in that period.
“But one of our hardest challenges a couple of years ago for the team was that we had got to a World Cup semi-final, but could we beat the bigger teams?
“Since then, we have won in Spain, we have beat Belgium in Wembley and we have beaten Germany. We are starting to get those results and we have to continue trying to do that.”
