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Centre-Backs: Sol Campbell, Rio Ferdinand, John Terry, Jamie Carragher vs. Harry Maguire, John Stones, Tyrone Mings, Joe Gomez, Kyle Walker
The amount of great central defenders available to Sven-Goran Eriksson, Steve McClaren and Fabio Capello during the time of the Golden Generation was simply ridiculous. Sol Campbell (Arsenal), Rio Ferdinand (Manchester United) and John Terry (Chelsea) were amongst the greatest defenders of the time, while the likes of Jamie Carragher (Liverpool) and Ledley King (Tottenham) were more than able deputies.
Campbell and Terry played together at Euro 2004 and performed well, but the 2006 World Cup was probably the highest point for England’s defence; the pairing of Terry and Ferdinand conceded just two goals across five games in that tournament and stood firm when the Three Lions were reduced to 10 men in the quarter-final meeting with Portugal, preventing them from scoring.
Southgate, meanwhile, has struggled to find a first-choice defensive partnership; Harry Maguire of Leicester and now Manchester United is clearly his best defender, but partnerships with John Stones (Manchester City) and Tyrone Mings (Aston Villa) have thus far only seen mixed results, with England’s defence looking definitively shaky in their 3-1 loss to the Netherlands in the UEFA Nations League semi-finals last summer.
In their successful 2018 World Cup campaign, Southgate used Manchester City’s right-back Kyle Walker as a third centre-back, but England’s defence looked equally questionable at times during the tournament and in the year that has followed, that experiment appears to have been stopped, with Walker no longer being picked for the squad.
Younger players like Joe Gomez (Liverpool) and Fikayo Tomori (Chelsea) may become world-class performers in the future, but for now the Golden Generation’s central defence must be considered stronger.
Advantage: The Golden Generation
