New hero: An overjoyed Ollie Watkins running off to celebrate after scoring the second and winning goal against Holland in their semi-final match. — AP
BERLIN: England’s newly crowned hero Ollie Watkins kept a promise to unused substitutes Dean Henderson and Lewis Dunk when he made a beeline for the bench after his 90th-minute goal in the 2-1 semi-final victory over Holland at Euro 2024.
Watkins, who has played just 30 minutes in the tournament and was an 80th-minute substitute on Wednesday, sympathised with Henderson, the team’s third goalkeeper, and Dunk, a centreback, who have yet to see a minute of action.
“I did make a promise to Deano and Dunky that, if I scored, I would run over and celebrate with them,” Watkins said on England’s in-house show “Lions’ Den” at the team’s training base in Blankenhain.
“Sometimes you can feel a little bit left out because you’re not on the pitch,” the 28-year-old added. “So me celebrating with them, obviously I’ve been on sitting on the bench experiencing that and I just wanted to make it special for everyone. And yeah, it was nice that they all jumped on the pitch and could be a part of it.”
Watkins proved to be a soothsayer for England, predicting the massive impact he and Cole Palmer, who also entered the game in the 80th minute, would have in the wild finish in Dortmund, with Palmer providing the pass for Watkins’ gorgeous goal.
“We were playing together at half-time, just passing to each other, and (Watkins) said to me we’re going to come on, and I’m going to set him up and he’s going to score - and when it happened, it was mad,” said Palmer, who sat alongside Watkins on Thursday’s show.
Palmer said the Aston Villa forward had been making picture-perfect runs with similarly brilliant finishes in camp for weeks.
“You’ve got to have that belief when you’re going on the pitch to that you’re going to bring something to the team, bring some energy, and for me, when I’ve got the ball there, I knew I had to be selfish and shoot because I may not get another opportunity,” Watkins said.
For a moment, it looked like Watkins and Palmer, who are both making their major tournament debuts for England, would not see any action on Wednesday after Bukayo Saka appeared to score England’s second goal. But VAR showed it was offside.
“Obviously, in a way (the offside) was a blessing, we got opportunity to make the difference, and (manager Gareth Southgate) said, ‘Just go on and win it for us’. And I think we’ve done that,” Watkins said. — Reuters
