England captain Steven Gerrard insists that the Three Lions squad will leave their egos behind for this year’s Euro 2012.
The
31-year-old blamed unrealistic pre-tournament expectations for past
failures, but believes that this year the pressure has been lifted
somewhat.
And Gerrard, who has been capped 90 times by his
country, insists previous heartbreaks will stand the country in good
stead for the summer.
“Usually the experience I’ve had going into
tournaments is always the golden generation are going to win it, we’re
going to do this,” he told the Daily Mirror.
“We put two or three
results together and the nation gets carried away and also the players
start believing that we’re great. Maybe we go into tournaments believing
we’re better than we are.
“I don’t want to be too hard and we
have been close, but I feel for the tools that we have got and the
players we have had, I do feel we should have done better.
“I
think this time there’s a lot of realism about. Expectations are maybe
down because we’ve not performed and we haven’t delivered in the
previous tournaments.
“That doesn’t mean we’re not going to go into this tournament with belief and confidence that we can cause an upset.
“The
pressure and the expectation seems to be slightly in our favour this
time rather than a hindrance and weight on our shoulders so we’re hoping
we can use that to our advantage.”
The Huyton-born midfielder
also reflected on his appointment as skipper under new boss Roy Hodgson,
admitting it has been a dream for a long time.
“Throughout my career, since I was a young boy, a lot of people have said that maybe one day I would captain England,” he said.
“My
dad has been saying for a long time that he would love me to captain
England so it’s just nice to make my family feel proud and they’re
chuffed to bits.
“I’ve never been totally confident I would get it
because under Steve McClaren and (Fabio) Capello, I’ve missed out on it
to other people.
“So it feels as if it has been a long time coming and now I’m going to give it my best shot.”
