World Cup 2022: Adrian Bevington Column on England in Qatar

Also heavily involved with Middlesbrough, Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa, he will be writing a series of exclusive World Cup columns for The Northern Echo.

There’s nothing quite like a World Cup. If you’re involved in international football, you’re in and around big matches and major competitions all the time, but the World Cup just takes things to another level, and that’s what Gareth Southgate and his players and backroom staff will have been experiencing in the last few days.

They’ll have been getting used to their hotel and training base, and they play a massive part in any World Cup campaign. There’ll be several members of the backroom team that have been making regular trips to Qatar in the last year or so, doing reconnaissance work and helping to select and set up the hotel.

But for the players, this will have been their first look at their new home for the next month or so, and the FA will have been doing everything they can to try to make it feel as welcoming as possible.

There’ll have been a lot of work going on in the hotel, turning it into a ‘House of England’ and dressing it out accordingly. Gareth is really good at the little touches, and each player’s room will have been individually set up with pictures or messages from friends and family left in there.

England's media centre in Qatar (Image: PA)

It’s their own space, and everything will have been done to try to make them feel comfortable there. Each player will have their own room – the days of roommates and players sharing bedrooms are long gone, especially at a major tournament.

There’ll be communal spaces to relax and unwind, with things like table tennis tables, pool tables and dartboards, but three of the key areas will be the masseurs’ room, the physios’ room and the kit room. They’re spaces where the players tend to gravitate towards to congregate and chat, and they tend to become key hubs in the team hotel.

ONE of the big benefits of having a World Cup in a country as small as Qatar is that England won’t have to relocate from the team hotel during the tournament. At other World Cups, you’d be based in your team hotel until the day before the game, then you’d have to move on to a different venue for the game itself, where you’d be based in a hotel that was selected for you. That can create its own problems.

I remember in 2010 in South Africa, we were playing against Germany in the first knockout game in Bloemfontein, and when we arrived on the day before the game, the hotel that had been allocated to us was the worst hotel I’d ever known an England team have to stay in.

Now, I’m not for one minute saying that’s why we lost the game, but it’s hugely frustrating when you spend years and years planning the logistics of a tournament, and spend a fortune on getting things just right in your team hotel and training base, but then ahead of one of the biggest matches you’re going to play, you’re parachuted into an environment that is just not acceptable for a top sports team.

That was the position we found ourselves in, in Bloemfontein, but it won’t be an issue in this tournament as all the teams will be able to travel to the matchday venue from their own hotels. It might not sound that significant, but from a logistical point of view, it’s actually quite a big thing.

THERE was a lot of talk around the squad that Gareth selected – I think he got pretty much all of his big calls right. I’ve got a massive amount of respect and admiration for the job that Gareth has done in his time as England manager, and I’m sure he’ll be heading into this tournament confident that he can go all the way.

If it had been a purely footballing decision, I would probably have selected Ivan Toney because, in my experience, one of the key things at a World Cup is having the ability to change things when they’re not really going your way, especially in attack. Obviously, though, there have been stories this week about potential gambling offences, and Gareth will have known what was going on in the background before things became public. If he felt it wasn’t the right thing to pick Ivan Toney, you have to respect his call.

Even so, my only slight concern with the squad is that it’s a little bit light in attack, especially if anything was to happen to Harry Kane, then say Callum Wilson was to be unavailable too. You need players who can make a difference.

England manager Gareth Southgate (Image: PA)

In 2002, in Japan, we weren’t really able to change things when we went 2-1 down to Brazil, and then in 2004, we couldn’t change things when Wayne Rooney got injured in Portugal. The same was really true when Michael Owen went down in 2006, so you have to factor in the possibility of injuries to key players, and that’s why you need game-changers in your squad.

James Maddison is that type of player, and that’s why I’m delighted Gareth named him in the squad. He’s been absolutely brilliant for Leicester this season, and more than deserves his place.

It’ll be interesting to see what team Gareth picks for the Iran game, but like I said before, I’ve got faith in him getting it right. He’s taken us to a semi-final and a final in the last two major tournaments, and even though I worked alongside some excellent managers during my time with the FA, none of them were able to do that.