As the Three Lions prevailed in their quarterfinal game in Georgia, the Liverpool midfielder once more played the whole 90 minutes. After participating in the previous two games, Harvey Elliott was not included in the team for this one.
With a string of excellent outings for the England U21 team, Curtis Jones has capitalized on his strong club season finale with Liverpool. As England easily qualified for the knockout stages, Jones played the entire match in each of the team’s first two games of the group stages. After taking a break for the third game, he returned for the quarterfinal against Portugal.
While Curtis Jones was in the starting lineup, Harvey Elliott was not in the squad at all after scoring a brilliant solo goal against Germany. His absence was apparently pre-planned for a family engagement.
Jones and England controlled the first half of the match, with former Everton (ugh) and current Newcastle (double ugh) striker Anthony Gordon knocking home a feed from Morgan Gibbs-White in the 34th minute. Portugal took hold of the match in the second half, but the Three Lions were able to weather the storm and see the match out to advance to the semifinals.
England will now have a rematch with Israel, with England comfortable coming out on top 2-0 in the second match of the group stages. Israel knocked off hosts Georgia on penalty kicks in the quarterfinals.
Leave a Reply