Dream of mine to represent England but being No 1 is the goal, admits Nick Pope

While Euro 2020 has been postponed by a year to allow football associations across Europe more time to finish their league seasons, it did break a lot of hearts. Especially for countries like Finland, Wales, and many others, who don’t often get the chance to participate in a top international competition. Not only that, at the same time it has seen a few footballers left in limbo as they were supposed to be training with their countries right about now.

Yet, with the Euro 2020 pushed to the summer of 2021, it allows players to get a little more experience. Not only that, for many others it allows them to prove their place in the national team set up to their various head-coaches. The same applies to England and Nick Pope with many calling for Gareth Southgate to replace Jordan Pickford after an error strewn season with Everton. But Pope has admitted that it’s a tough job to dislodge the England No 1 and yet it is something that he is working towards doing in the near future.

“One of my main things is not to look too far ahead. I’m really looking after myself at Burnley. England is so far away, even though being the No 1 is something that I want. It’s a real dream of mine to play at Wembley and to represent England as many times as possible,” Pope told the Guardian.

“It must be billions and billions to one so to have that opportunity would be unbelievable. Although I didn’t play a game at the World Cup, to be part of that was still one of the greatest things of my life. The biggest moment? Eric Dier scoring the winning penalty against Colombia. As one of the goalkeepers, I’d done a lot of work with Eric and the other lads on the penalties, so to see them perform as they did was incredible. If you could stop time and rerun the adrenaline and everything you had for those couple of moments, it would be unbelievable.”