How do you leave a mark in England when you have one Harry Kane in front of you? How to be remembered? Ollie Watkins, a guy who knows how to seize an opportunity, will tell you. Until last night, 13 appearances for the national team and goals against San Marino in Euro qualifiers, and Australia and Ivory Coast in friendly matches. Tonight, the semi-finals of the European Championship, the 90th minute and a movie-like ending for the Aston Villa striker.The Three Lions are comeback kings! One more step to bring it home!Did he come off the bench in the 81st minute to boost himself up and his teammates, did he want to pump his adrenaline up and self-confidence, or did he simply know what was coming next? Watkins, sharing his first impressions with journalists after the game, uttered a sentence that has already gone around the world.”I swear on my kids’ life, I told Cole Palmer earlier today, we’d be coming on and he’d set me up and I’d score. And it happened.”Watkins is far from an average football player. There are no such in the England national team. He has already played almost 150 Premier League games, scored 59 goals, and is officially the best assistant in the Premier League last season. And he knows what it’s like to score big goals, how to close derbies. He scored multiple times against all the members of the ‘big six’.England’s Ollie Watkins postmatch interview: pic.twitter.com/qr9O2E4PJV— Hunter De Siver (@HunterDeSiver) July 10, 2024 But the European Championship is another level, the semi-finals are one of the biggest challenges a player can experience. He is one game away from becoming an absolute legend of English football. Even if he doesn’t play a minute in the showpiece and the Three Lions win that last game, Watkins words before taking the field against the Netherlands, will live on for decades.The Villa star expectedly got praised from his teammates and Jude Bellingham called the striker from Torquay his squad’s saviour.England entered the final of the European Championship for the second time in a row and on Sunday they will fight against Spain to win the first title of European champion in history.##NAJAVA_MECA_8208238##A string of good fortune for England began with Bellingham’s scissors kick against Slovakia with 1 minute and 15 seconds remaining, and now the Real Madrid youngster has thanked his team-mate for avoiding extra time in their semi-final clash with the Netherlands.”I am very grateful to Ollie, because I don’t know if I would have had the strength for another half hour. He came in and did it for us. People don’t understand that you come to play for the national team, that you miss your holiday, that you are away from your family, and you don’t start every game like you do at the club, and tonight, despite everything, Ollie was brilliant when he came on. Things like that can break you, if you don’t have a strong mentality. He’s our hero, he saved us.”Jude Bellingham interview after the match today! 🤍🏴 pic.twitter.com/m8ZMjBrg6n— Jeidy (@JudeBelligirl) July 10, 2024 Bellingham had only words of praise for their rival in the final.”They are playing incredibly. They are really good, but in one game everything is possible. We will sit down and analyze them, to understand in detail how they play. We know they have a lot of weapons, but we have ours too”.
