Gareth Southgate praised Rico Lewis after the Manchester City youngster bounced back from giving away a harsh penalty on his international debut and impressed during England’s dull 1-1 draw with North Macedonia.
Lewis, who turns 19 on Tuesday, did not panic when he was penalised for an innocuous challenge following a lengthy VAR review at the end of the first half at the Tose Proeski Arena. He looked mature at left-back and boosted his hopes of being included in England’s squad for Euro 2024.
“He was excellent,” Southgate said. “We’re not looking at him for being at fault in any way. His composure with the ball was outstanding. He should be very proud because we were very, very pleased with what he did.
“Great composure, great resilience. We didn’t feel he had anything to come back from. I know sometimes as a player you might feel that. But we thought there was no crime.”
Southgate felt no need to console Lewis after North Macedonia ended the first half with a 1-0 lead. “We just pointed out how well he was playing and how well the team were playing and that we had to keep probing,” England’s manager said. “We knew a goal would come and we thought more would come.”
England equalised moments after Harry Kane’s introduction for Ollie Watkins, Jani Atanasov scoring an own goal. Watkins had been given a chance to show he could be Kane’s understudy but the England striker managed only 11 touches as the side’s qualification campaign came to an underwhelming end.
Qualified teams
Pot 1 Germany (hosts), Portugal, France, Spain, Belgium, England
Pot 2 Hungary, Denmark, Albania, Austria, Turkey, Romania
Pot 3 Scotland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Czech Rep, Netherlands, Croatia
Pot 4 Serbia, Italy, Switzerland, three playoff winners
Playoffs Bosnia & Herzegovina, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Greece, Iceland, Israel, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Poland, Ukraine, Wales. Draw 11am, Thursday 23 November. Six semi-finals will be drawn (to be played on Thursday 21 March), leading to three finals (Tuesday 26 March). The winning three teams will complete the 24-strong Euro 2024 lineup
The tournament
Draw Saturday 2 December. Six groups of four will be drawn, with the top two in each and the four best third-place sides going into the last 16
Finals
Friday 14 June to Sunday 14 July 2024
“Ollie, look, it was a difficult game,” Southgate said. “We weren’t quite able to create the clear chance for him. But he did fine, it’s not easy when you’re coming in in those circumstances but that’s international football.”
England finished first in Group C and will be top seeds at the Euros. Southgate was pleased that his side have not lost this year. “If you’d said at the start of the campaign that we would be eight wins, two draws at the end of the year, it’s a pretty good record given the fixtures that we’ve had,” he said. “We can now start to look forward.”
The draw for the Euros takes place on 2 December. “The next exciting bit is the draw and we will see what the path looks like,” Southgate said. “There are a lot of players to keep a track on.”
