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Danny Mills on the 2002 England squad: "The golden-plated generation"

Former England international Danny Mills joined Saturday's Off the Ball ahead of this year's Worl...
Newstalk
Newstalk

19.09 2 Jun 2018


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Danny Mills on the 2002 Englan...

Danny Mills on the 2002 England squad: "The golden-plated generation"

Newstalk
Newstalk

19.09 2 Jun 2018


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Former England international Danny Mills joined Saturday's Off the Ball ahead of this year's World Cup in Russia.

The former Leeds United defender also reminisced on the 2002 tournament in Japan and South Korea where he thinks it was the one that got away. 

"We had dreams and aspirations and suddenly, getting to the quarter-final and 'you know what - if we beat Brazil - we could win this!' 

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"Obviously we went 1-0 up, then we conceded just before half-time. And you look back and people say 'do you have regrets?' 

"Personally, no. I think I gave absolutely everything in that tournament. On a personal level - I proved a lot of people wrong - people that didn't think I was good enough to play at that level. People that didn't think I would be disciplined enough to play at that level. 

"I think possibly the only regret, we didn't, as a team in the last 15/20 minutes, we didn't change it up a little bit and just shell a few balls into the box - 'Let's go old school Ireland' if you like. 'Let's put the big man up front, stick a few balls in and see what happens.' 

"I think maybe we were too tired, we had a tough game, Brazil kept the ball from us - they were better than us - but that's probably the only thing we didn't do in that last, sort of, 10/15 minutes.

"It's not pretty but sometimes, maybe shell a few balls into the box, keeper might spill one, you might get a header - something like that so no real regrets but I think 2006, just after that, is the last time England got to the quarter-finals!

"So what was supposed to be a golden generation - I often say it was a golden-plated generation!"

Catch the full interview here:

Danny Mills on the 2002 England squad: "The golden-plated generation"

00:00:00 / 00:00:00

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