Curtis Jones, Cole Palmer and James Trafford send their best wishes to England MU21s, as well as reflecting on their own memories of the U21 EUROs
Ahead of Saturday’s UEFA U21 EURO Final between England and Germany, Three Lions trio Cole Palmer, Curtis Jones and James Trafford looked back on their own memories of the winning the title at the 2023 edition of the competition.
They were all key members of Lee Carsley’s squad in Georgia and Romania two years ago, with Palmer setting up Jones’ winning goal and Trafford saving a stoppage-time penalty in a dramatic final in Tbilisi.
And as well as sending good luck to Carsley’s current squad in Slovakia, they watched some of our exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of a memorable night in the latest of our ‘Generations’ feature.
“We’re fortunate enough now to be in the first team, but we’re looking back at two years ago and looking at that tournament,” said Jones.
“We all wanted to play as a team, and we knew if we didn’t then we wouldn’t stand a chance so all of the lads put all their pride aside and it was like the team that Cars [Carsley] picked was the team that played.”
Cole added: “I agree, we had a good team on paper but it was just about if we could play as a team and yeah, we did it.”
“I was always confident we were going to win, because of how we played through the tournament and with the players we had, we were just in too good a form,” said Trafford.
Looking back at the Final against Spain, in which Jones’ first-half goal came via a deflection off his back from Palmer’s free-kick before Trafford’s stoppage time heroics prompted wild celebrations, it brought back some fond memories of the dynamics and spirit among the group.
And they all spoke in depth about how they managed the game, from the winning goal through to Trafford revealing how he remained the coolest man on the pitch as he faced Abel Ruiz’s spot kick in the dying seconds before producing a stunning double save which was even predicted by Cole from the sidelines.