Gareth Southgate revealed that England‘s players held an impromptu clear-the-air meeting without staff present to try and turn their form around after losing 1-0 to Italy on Friday.
England, who were relegated to the Nations League second-tier after defeat in Milan, responded with an improved performance against Germany at Wembley on Monday, coming from 2-0 down to lead 3-2 only for Kai Havertz to equalise three minutes from time in a 3-3 draw.
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Although England extended their winless run to six matches in their final outing before the World Cup begins in November, Southgate praised his team’s resilience following an intervention by the squad’s leadership group, which includes captain Harry Kane and midfielder Jordan Henderson.
“One of the things was they asked could they have a meeting on their own [without the coaching staff] to talk things through,” Southgate said. “I think, for me, that was a positive sign. By the way, there are moments at some clubs where that’s not a good sign. But they talked through what they wanted to do.
“For me, the best football teams of course need outstanding leadership from the coaching team and everything else but the best teams have a real core of players that drive things.
“There’s more of those sorts of conversations go on across the week where they are eating, where they are having treatment, where they are interacting where you can’t be involved as a staff.
“To have the right sort of messages filtering through to all members of the group to keep people on track is crucial. That’s one example of how we dealt with it well.
“[There weren’t] tactical messages, just keeping people on track. [Saying] ‘we’re on board with what we’re being asked to do, we need to stay calm, we’ve been through moments like this before.’
