Kyle Walker opens up on shock England retirement before World Cup and claims Three Lions ‘LACKED the mentality’ to win big games at tournaments during his international career
Kyle Walker has claimed England lacked the mentality to win big games at tournaments after he announced his retirement from international football.
Walker, 35, earned 96 caps for England after making his debut in November 2011, and played under four managers – Fabio Capello, Roy Hodgson, Gareth Southgate, and Thomas Tuchel. He ranks 10th on England’s all-time men’s senior appearance list.
Walker last played for the Three Lions in their World Cup qualifier against Albania in March 2025, a 2-0 victory. He was dropped for Reece James for the following match against Latvia and hasn’t returned to the England squad since.
Walker played in the 2018 World Cup semi-finals, the Euro 2020 final, the 2022 World Cup quarter-finals and the 2024 European Championship final.
On those occasions, the Three Lions were beaten by Croatia, Italy, France and Spain respectively.
And, speaking in the aftermath of his decision to end his international career, Walker – who won 17 trophies during his eight-year spell with Man City – pinpointed the reason as to why he failed to add to that trophy haul with England.
Kyle Walker has claimed England lacked the mentality to win big games at tournaments during his international career
Walker announced his England retirement on Tuesday after winning 96 caps for his country
‘I think it’s mentality,’ Walker said on The Overlap, brought to you by Sky Bet. ‘I played at Tottenham for a lot of my career, and I got to a lot of finals. You look around in the dressing room and you’re searching for people that have done it before [won a league or final].
‘And I remember joining [Manchester] City, and we played Arsenal in the Carabao [Cup]. I looked around and I just thought, we’ve won this. You’ve got the likes of Vinnie [Vincent Kompany], David Silva, [Sergio] Aguero, Kevin [De Bruyne], and you think we’re OK here.
‘And low and behold, Vinnie and David go and score the goals, and I think that’s what we probably lacked in that Croatia game [in the 2018 World Cup semi-final].
‘When [Mario] Mandzukic, [Ivan] Perisic, [Luka] Modric – you’ve got all these players that are multiple champions in different leagues, and they probably don’t carry the pressure as much although it means just the same to them, one million percent it does.
‘They probably don’t carry that pressure as much as the Englishmen do with the nation behind them.’
Walker continued: ‘You’re seeing videos from back home where people are jumping in canals and everything like that.
‘The box is going mental, and you’re looking and you’re thinking, there’s pressure here. But as much as we didn’t have the pressure, once you get there [to the final], there is pressure.’
Walker added losing the final against Italy hurt him the most. ‘The Wembley one hurts,’ he said. ‘I think everything obviously being at Wembley. The way we’ve conceded the equaliser where we haven’t conceded, we had a statistic up for God knows how long that we didn’t concede a set play goal for God knows how many matches.
‘The one game where we don’t want to concede a set play goal, we go and concede one.
‘Just the magnitude of the game, especially after the Champions League Final and losing that, you kind of want to bounce back and go and win something for your country.
‘You get so close, and then it’s decided by penalties – that was a cruel one. I think Spain were the better team and they should have won that tournament. I think that one to lose it on pens, it’s kind of a sour taste.’
Walker says Tuchel’s style is more about keeping the ball, rather than the classic English style
When asked about what England’s game plan was under Gareth Southgate, he adds: ‘I look back at it now, we probably didn’t train a certain scenario that if we do go one nil up, this is what’s going to happen.
‘Where if I look back at my [Manchester] City career, never mind if it was one nil, two nil, nil nil, we would keep playing the play same way, and it’s consistent. And we knew whether that would be an equaliser or winner, we would get the goal in some way, shape or form.
‘I think where the first [England] camp that you know, the gaffer was in now, Thomas [Tuchel] was more about keeping the ball, more European football, rather than English football of let’s get it forward as quick as possible and turn it into a basketball game.’
