England Daily Digest: 1 June

Last updated : 05 June 2019 By Three Lions

A busy month for various Three Lions teams started on Saturday with a final World Cup warm-up for England Women ahead of their first game at France 2019, against Scotland next Sunday in Nice.

Phil Neville's side lost 1-0 to fellow finalists New Zealand at the Amex Stadium in Brighton but the Lionesses boss insisted afterwards that his side remain on track for a successful tournament.

"The disappointing thing is that we got an unbelievable crowd here and we haven't got the win they deserved," he said.

"The real thing starts next week."

Already in France are England's Under-20's, playing at the annual Toulon Tournament.

Defending champions, England lost 2-1 to Japan in their opening game on Saturday but with the European Under-21 Championships starting shortly a mixed-age group squad has travelled to Toulon and will have known that winning the trophy again will prove difficult.

With the Nations League Finals just a few days away, Gareth Southgate's achievement in reaching the semi-finals of Russia 2018 remain something people outside of football are keen to draw inspiration from.

England's cricketers listened to a talk from Southgate ahead of their own World Cup opening match against South Africa on Thursday.

Captain Eoin Morgan said: "He got up and talked about his journey with the team in and around the World Cup, in the build-up as well and how they built bigger expectations and became more together as a group."

"I think everybody within the room listening who has been involved in our team over the last four years recognised that they are where we were two years ago and we started exactly where they did."