England hero Luke Shaw delighted over ‘strange stat’ he now has more Euro assists than France legend Zinedine Zidane
LUKE SHAW delivered two assists for England in the space of three minutes and 51 seconds at Euro 2020.
And that was more than French legend Zinedine Zidane managed in 14 appearances at the European Championships.
Shaw set up the second goal for Harry Maguire before crossing for Harry Kane to make it 3-0 in the 4-0 win over Ukraine in the quarter-finals.
Told about his achievement of overtaking Zidane’s contributions at a Euro, Shaw, who has the second most assists at the tournament, said: "A very strange stat! A nice one, I think.
"Obviously, Zidane was one of the best midfielders ever and I can't compare to him.
"But the most important thing for me was reaching the semi-final, getting another game at Wembley in front of our own crowd and hopefully making them happy again."
Shaw has been impressive for England and so far, has played a part in four goals. He is also thankful to boss Gareth Southgate for picking him, despite not being involved in the Euro 2020 qualifiers.
He said: “My main objective is to help the team as much as possible, attacking and defensively.
"Of course, I could go through a lot of people to thank but I think the most important one is obviously Gareth for trusting me and putting me in the squad and picking me and playing me.
"But I've kept my head down, kept working hard and hopefully I can keep this responsibility up for the manager."
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England have now not conceded a goal for over 11 hours, spanning more than seven games dating back to a 2-1 win over Poland on March 31.
Shaw said: "Our foundation is obviously keeping clean sheets and not just the defence.
"I think you can see it from the whole team. Everyone puts in the hard graft.
"Of course, we want to create our own history and I think we need everyone to be defensively solid.
"But I think with the attacking talent we've got, we know we're going to create chances and score goals."
Shaw also had words of praise for Jordan Pickford who has impressed throughout the tournament, although Saturday’s win in Rome was straightforward for the keeper.
Shaw added: “We don't want to lose concentration now. I think the concentration in the defence has been unbelievable and of course that starts with Pickers.
"Pickers has been outstanding, for me. He's been unbelievable, one of our best players this tournament.”
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