CLIQUES that were commonplace in the England camp in tournaments gone by have been well and truly consigned to history.
Players used to stick with those they knew best when with their country, usually from their club, as Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinand and others have often recounted over the years.
Gareth Southgate has worked hard during his eight years to transform all that – and now bromances that you perhaps would not expect are popping up all over the squad at Euro 2024.
Declan Rice and Ivan Toney? They have never played together at club level and only a handful of times for England, but are thick as thieves.
Lewis Dunk and Dean Henderson? They play for arch-rivals Brighton and Crystal Palace, but that has not stopped an unlikely alliance from forming.
It underlines how Southgate has broken down those barriers which he likely experienced himself as a player.
Remember, he was a relative outsider in the Three Lions squad to those at big-four clubs, having represented Palace, Aston Villa and Middlesbrough.
Some friendships go way back and are being rekindled out here at England’s training camp in Blankenhain, eastern Germany.
Phil Foden and Cole Palmer have relished spending time together again, having done so for years for Manchester City before Palmer was sold to Chelsea for £45million last summer.
Foden, who edged out Palmer to win the Footballer of the Year award this season, revealed: “Me and Cole have been hanging out quite a lot when on camp.
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“We’ve been going to the sauna and steam, playing a bit of padel.
“He’s someone I know really well from club and is a close friend.
“I’ve been training with him for many years at City, I know his talent and how good he is and he can only get better.
“He’s someone I can see having a big effect on the tournament when he gets his opportunity.”
Padel is just one of a number of down-time sports available to help build dressing-room harmony, along with golf and table-tennis.
NFL nuts Harry Kane and Anthony Gordon were chucking an American football to each other ahead of a light training session on Monday.
Players up for the press conference have taken on the media at darts, as has been the case since Southgate took over (the press are currently leading 3-1).
John Stones and Kieran Trippier gatecrashed Jordan Pickford’s presser to see how their good mate fared, finding it hilarious as he slumped to defeat against talkSPORT.
The trio play for City (Stones), Newcastle (Trippier) and Everton (Pickford), and even though they have represented England many times together, it still speaks to how buddying-up is happening irrespective of club loyalties.
There was also enjoyment had from riding the £3,400 state-of-the-art e-bikes as part of Monday’s recovery session – even if Foden did reveal Bukayo Saka, who is popular with everyone in the squad, had some trouble with the gears!
Like Foden and Palmer, Conor Gallagher and Marc Guehi also have a long-standing friendship and have been besties since they were little playing in the Chelsea academy.
They won the Under-17 World Cup together in 2017 and had a season in the Palace team in 2021-22 when they both joined the South Londoners, Guehi permanently and Gallagher on loan.
The current Blues midfielder said: “There’s a lot of great friendships in the squad.
“I think a big part of enjoying training and enjoying every minute of this tournament is getting along with everyone and having a good time and being relaxed off the pitch so you can do your best on the pitch. Marc is a top guy, top player.
"In our downtime, there is a lot of stuff to do. You have basketball, table tennis, darts. Mario Kart. I am spending a lot of time with Marc having day-to-day competitions. Whoever wins the most competitions in a day wins that day and gets a point. Right now, it is 3-2 to me.
"We only had one game of Mario Kart and Marc beat me. My excuse is that he has got younger sisters so he has got to play with them. We play table tennis a lot and it is a lot easier. I think I have got the better of him in that but there are many days for Marc to come back.
"Me and Marc go way back. We both joined Chelsea academy right at the start when we were seven or right and we played together at Swansea and Crystal Palace. Wherever I have gone he has followed me. He is a great friend of mine and a top player."
Guehi, 23, and Gallagher, 24, both featured in Sunday’s 1-0 win over Serbia, the former from the start and the latter off the bench.
That game also highlighted how close Real Madrid superstar Jude Bellingham and Liverpool man Trent Alexander-Arnold have become.
Bellingham celebrated his early winning goal with a routine with TAA where they both held their hands in front of their faces, in reference to a game England players have been playing for years called Werewolf.
They were then snapped recreating the post in training on Monday by photographer-for-the-day Rice, who completed the Three Lions’ three-man midfield along with the duo against the Serbs.
The kindred-spirit nature of Rice and Toney’s friendship meant they knew they would hit it off before they had even played together.
JUDE BELLINGHAM was England’s head boy as Gareth Southgate’s side made a winning start in Germany.
The Real Madrid superstar oozed class throughout and broke the deadlock with only 13 minutes played thanks to an excellent header, dispatching Bukayo Saka’s deflected cross.
But, despite the brilliant start, it was a nervy affair here in Gelsenkirchen.
Serbia exerted significant pressure in the second half, with a few narrow escapes for Southgate’s men.
Harry Kane barely had a kick and the Premier League’s player of the year Phil Foden struggled to have any influence on the left of the Three Lions’ front three.
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Rice, sold by West Ham to Arsenal last summer for £105m, explained: “When I was at West Ham, he used to banter me on the pitch all the time.”
Toney, 28, elaborated: “He would do a diag (diagonal crossfield pass) and, say it went out of play, I would say ‘good pass’.
“We are kind of like the same people, (we have) the same interest.”
Rice, 25, added: “The way we are, how he is, it’s the same type that I like to be. It’s easy.”
Rice even went so far as to say that if there was one squad-member he had to spend a year with marooned on a desert island, it would definitely be Toney.
He has introduced the Brentford striker to golf out here in Germany, while the pair have been playing Uno and are often the DJs in the dressing room.
They are also part of a four-man, gym-bunny group that also includes Liverpool defender Joe Gomez and Ezri Konsa, of Aston Villa.
One of the games the squad have been enjoying playing is who can handle the heat in the sauna for the longest.
Toney has a strong reputation for it, but Gomez appears to be the king of the heat.
Speaking on the FA’s Lions’ Den, Rice revealed: “Loads of the lads are in the sauna. This guy’s (Toney) mentality in the sauna is nuts.
“He just keeps adding the water in and the steam just hits you. He’s just there, like that (arms folded, relaxed) and I’m like (sweating)."
Toney added: “You’ve got to be the last man standing. To be fair, I got beat the other day. Joe is something else.
“You have to have that competitive edge. I think everyone’s got it in the team. It’s enjoyable, even with the sauna. Last man standing. When there's six or seven of us, it’s who crumbles first.
“Obviously Ez (Eberechi Eze) is moaning all the time, he drops out, then it’s a little domino effect.”
Fellow sauna enthusiast Palmer, 22, is also known to be very close to fellow youngster Kobbie Mainoo, 19.
That is despite the pair growing up on the opposite sides of Manchester, with Palmer City and Mainoo United, underlining how club rivalries seem to count for nothing in this squad.
Dunk made that exact point when explaining his friendship with Eagles stopper Henderson, 27.
The Brighton captain, 32, said: “I’ve been getting on with Dean Henderson really well.
“You just get comfortable with someone, easy to talk to, quite funny, a little bit stupid! No, he’s a good lad.”
Neatly summing up what Southgate has created as England manager, Dunk added: “There’s no rivalries in this camp, I can tell you that.”
CLIQUES that were commonplace in the England camp in tournaments gone by have been well and truly consigned to history.
Declan Rice and Ivan Toney? They have never played together at club level and only a handful of times for England, but are thick as thieves.
Lewis Dunk and Dean Henderson? They play for arch-rivals Brighton and Crystal Palace, but that has not stopped an unlikely alliance from forming.
Phil Foden and Cole Palmer have relished spending time together again, having done so for years for Manchester City before Palmer was sold to Chelsea for £45million last summer.
NFL nuts Harry Kane and Anthony Gordon were chucking an American football to each other ahead of a light training session on Monday.
John Stones and Kieran Trippier gatecrashed Jordan Pickford’s presser to see how their good mate fared, finding it hilarious as he slumped to defeat against talkSPORT.
Conor Gallagher and Marc Guehi also have a long-standing friendship and have been besties since they were little playing in the Chelsea academy.
Jude Bellingham and Liverpool man Trent Alexander-Arnold have also become close - evident in the Werewolf celebration they performed against Serbia.
