World Cup camps can infamously be tedious places to be between games; just ask the 2010 England squad that travelled to South Africa.
At the time, the Three Lions were under the control of the authoritarian Fabio Capello. The Italian ruled with an iron fist during his spell in charge of England national side and that was a theme that continued throughout the World Cup.
Players even got so bored during the tournament that Wayne Rooney convinced one team-mate to watch his own wedding DVD to Coleen two years prior. Indeed, Jermain Defoe has previously revealed the extraordinary tale, with the pair seemingly going to extreme measures to entertain themselves.
Speaking to ESPN in 2018, Defoe said: "When we were in South Africa, I remember one night I was bored, so me and Wayne Rooney sat in his room and watched his whole wedding on DVD. It was nice to spend quality time with a team-mate.
"Wayne had something like a flash mob - the waiters were singing, dancing - if I can remember. It was good because he was my strike partner. Yeah, you do get bored but all the teams get bored. It's part and parcel. You can't make excuses."
The wedding DVD seemingly did little to inspire either Defoe or Rooney with the Three Lions suffering a quarter-final exit in South Africa. They only just squeezed through a group containing the USA, Slovenia and Algeria before being thumped by Joachim Low’s Germany 4-1 in the first knockout round.
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It did not improve all that much for the Three Lions in 2014 as they suffered an embarrassing group stage exit in Brazil.
Former Three Lions striker Danny Welbeck spoke out on the England camp ahead of the 2018 World Cup with suggestions that it would be too quiet for the squad - a worrying parallel with their camp in South Africa.
Speaking ahead of the tournament, he said: “For me, nothing like that seems to bother me.
“I've had surgery and then not been allowed to put weight on my leg for two months, so I've been stuck in a room and that sort of stuff. I don't get bored now. I've been through that, I don't get bored. I know what I can do to occupy myself, occupy my brain.
“If I am on my own, I like my own company (laughs) after that, so I am cool. That sort of stuff won't really bother me.”
It remains to be seen if any of the current squad’s wedding videos come out during the upcoming tournament in Qatar. T he Three Lions are set to stay at the Souq Al Wakra Hotel Qatar by Tivoli which is a short drive away from Doha City Centre.
