Mom wants Birchall to go at England

Speaking on the eve of today’s match against England in Nuremburg, Birchall indicated that while his favourite player may be England midfielder Steven Gerrard, he has no intentions of letting anything up.

Birchall said his father Phil, born in Liverpool, and mother are fully behind him. They are expected to be singing both anthems in the stands, but obviously will be more vocal when the TT anthem comes on.

“I’m Just really excited for the game,” Birchall told TTFF Media. “I am a person who doesn’t suffer from nerves and that will help for tomorrow. The confidence in the camp is high and we have nothing to lose really. We have to play our best football and hopefully get something out of the game. Everyone is expecting England to win it but that’s not the feeling in our camp.”

Birchall’s mother’s comments likely came in response to earlier statements by the player that he would not celebrate scoring against England, since he was born there and lives there.

And what exactly did his parents have to say?

“Just to give it a good go, work as hard as I normally do but put that extra in because we will need it against England because I’ll be up against the best midfield in the world in Gerard, Beckham and Lampar,” he said. “It’s the biggest game in the careers of all of us.”

And he believes the “Soca Warriors” are far more positive about their chances now than they would have been even a few weeks ago.

“Getting that result against Sweden gave us a good lift and it did show us that we can compete with the best in the world,” he said. “And I think we can play better on the day. We have more of an attacking threat than we showed last Saturday.”

He spent the last night not thinking too much about what the media or the fans have had to say about the game .

“Really it’s just to take my mind of the game a bit because when you think of it too much that’s when you can get a bit nervous,” he said. “I will hang out with the rest of the team and try to use as little energy as possible. We need everything for this game.”

The Soca Warriors remained in good spirits as they went through their last session at the match venue yesterday.

Always willing to bring laughter to a news conference, coach Leo Beenhakker had a classic response when a British reporter said that all the fans were predicting even a 6-0 win for England.

“Keep on dreaming,” Beenhakker said.