Euro 2024 England squad 'is among best ever' says Peter Crouch

Peter Crouch believes the current England football squad could be the “greatest we’ve ever had” – and wishes he could play for them. The former striker, capped 42 times for his country, admits: “I saw the players take a picture on the way to Germany – I do miss that, I am envious,” he admits. “A part of me thinks these boys are so lucky and I wish I was back there.”

Crouch scored 22 goals in two World Cups and one Euros between 2005 and 2010 and counted Wayne Rooney, David Beckham and Steven Gerrard as peers. But he reckons the Euro 2024 squad, kicking off their campaign against Serbia on Sunday, “gel better and almost feel like a club side” and have the potential to dominate international competitions for years.

“I would put this team up with the greatest we’ve ever had, but they’re not in that conversation until they win something,” he tells the Daily Express. “If they do, they’ll far succeed any generation I played with and we’ll have to compare them with the 1966 team.”

Now 43, Crouch retired from football in 2019. He subsequently launched a successful new career in podcasting and writing, more of which shortly, and enjoys a happy home life with model wife Abbey Clancy and their four young children.

He’s just partnered with breakfast food brand Alpro to demonstrate a series of celeb-inspired extreme morning routines from early rises to taking a 20-minute ice bath. “I’ve learned getting up at 2.30am is not the future,” he smiles. “I quite enjoyed the exercise and other things. I’ve done ice baths all my life as a footballer and know their benefits.”

Like everyone, the former Tottenham and Liverpool star will be glued to the box for the next month. And it’s given him ideas of what he would do if he was in Gareth Southgate’s position, who this week indicated he might stand down as England manager when his contract expires in December if his team don’t win.

“I see the talent we’ve got coming through and I’d be hanging on for dear life,” says Crouch. “We have the opportunity now to create something that no one’s done by consistently winning in multiple tournaments. We’ve got that much talent. It’s not just the team now, it’s the team coming up. I speak to the under-21 managers.

“They’re so confident that the players coming through are even better than the ones we see today. It’s a really exciting time to be an England manager and I don’t know how you walk away from that through choice.”

For two decades, Crouch was consumed by football but that all changed the year before his retirement when he launched That Peter Crouch Podcast in 2018.

“I was institutionalised if you like,” he says. “I did my coaching badges. I thought I might stay in it but then I did a book and podcast and they went bang.”

He started his podcast to promote his book, How to Be a Footballer, published in 2019 to coincide with his retirement from the sport. But within a year, thanks to his candid chat and witty banter, he had scored more than 12 million listeners.

It’s now one of the BBC’s biggest podcasts and has featured everyone from Prince William – “he was so lighthearted and brilliant” – to Louis Theroux and Idris Elba.

Crouch was incredibly open from the first broadcast, speaking about his insecurities and the taunts he faced from fans about his lofty 6ft 7in height.

“Because I was so naive, I didn’t think anyone was listening,” he says. I was talking so honestly and openly about football and the life that I’ve led in it. I would be much more guarded in an interview but because I was in a pub with a few drinks having laughs, it just felt like I was with my mates.

“There were ‘Oh, I can’t take that back now’ moments but it’s why it’s been such a success. I was talking very openly and honestly about the life I had in football.”

He’s since published two more books in the How To Be A Footballer series but has no plans for a fourth one as “you can only push something so far”.

“But even now I see people reading them when I go away on holiday and it fills me with pride,” he says, clearly chuffed.

He recently returned from a parents-only trip to Sicily with Abbey, with whom he shares two daughters, Sophia Ruby, 13, and Liberty Rose, eight, and two sons, Johnny, six, and Jack, four. His wife shared a stream of images of the pair enjoying meals and posing in their swimwear with her social media followers.

“I don’t post any pictures, Abbey does that!” he laughs. “I do tell her not to but she does it anyway. It was so nice, we went on our own without the kids. It was only for a few days. We try and do one every year to remind ourselves that we’re a couple, not just carers!”

Last year, the couple launched a joint podcast, The Therapy Crouch.

In it, they poke fun at one another and discuss the ups and downs of married life. It’s proven to be another smash-hit podcast.

“I see Abbey every single day so I know how funny, engaging and intelligent she is but not people know that,” says Crouch. “They just see pictures of her and think of footballers' wives. I’m just glad that everyone can now see the Abbey I know and love.”

They’ve been together since 2005 and married for 13 years.

“We’re very different characters, that’s why it works so well,” he says. “I am a bit more laid back and happy-go-lucky and she’s rubbed off on me in the way that she’s driven. She’s making me better and I’m making her better in a way.”

Born in Macclesfield, Couch’s family eventually settled in north-west London. He played for Brentford, Queens Park Rangers and Tottenham in his youth. But as he grew, so did the taunts about his height – humour quickly became his armour.

“It was a deflection because when I was young I looked very different. Certainly in school playgrounds and then going onto football terraces can be a harsh place, can’t it?” he muses. “I wasn’t hard enough to fight anyone so I used to counteract it with humour and it’s stood me in good stead for what I’m doing now.”

Famously, Old Trafford booed him when he made his England debut. Crouch’s family were there to support him and the negative reaction made “part of him wanted to die inside”.

“It was kind of like a free-for-all,” he recalls. “I had to toughen up and there were good people around me but there were times where I thought, ‘Do I need this? Does my family need this? Do I want to put them through this?’

“There were plenty of times I thought about chucking in the towel but I’m so grateful I stuck with it and turned people’s perceptions and opinions around.”

He credits his success to his father Bruce who instilled in him a determination to succeed.

“He pushed me, praised me when I needed praising and criticised me when I needed criticising. It was hard at times. ‘If you want to be a footballer, you’ve got to do this and that. Do you want to go to this party? Do you think the rest of the players are doing that?’ He was very good at letting me make my own decisions but telling me his opinion.

“It’s something we try to do with our own children hoping they’ll be successful in their lives whatever they choose to do.”

His eldest daughter Sophia is a competitive swimmer and plays tennis; his youngest, Liberty, is into dancing and singing.

“That’s more Abbey’s domain. I show her a robot every now and then [a nod to his famous routine after goal scoring] but that’s all I’ve got in my locker,” he laughs. “The boys are still young, they’re five and six. But I’d love them to play any level of football and enjoy it.”

The game is changing research linked heading the ball to dementia.

Crouch, who holds the record for the most headed goals in the Premier League, has seen the statistics and watched Alan Shearer’s documentary on dementia in football.

“I do worry because I think about when I was young, I was heading the ball constantly,” he admits. “Although I was tall, I wasn’t very good in the air so I would practice, practice, practice, every day by heading until I was almost got dizzy. It is a worry.

“But I wouldn’t have changed any of it because I’m very proud to have the record and that’s stood for a long time. I just hope to god it doesn’t affect me in the end.”

He thinks there should be a sensible approach with children as their brains are still growing but admits that “football without headings doesn’t feel like the same game”.

Returning to the Euros, his advice to the current squad is to try to focus on the game and ignore the buzz around them. But he understands that won’t be easy.

“You know the whole nation is watching every single move you make. Every tackle you make is scrutinised and there’s no getting away from that but to deal with the pressure, remember you’re there for a reason and play your own game with decisions that you’d make in a normal game on a Saturday if that’s at all possible,” he says.

He knows they will be bursting with pride when they line up to sing England’s national anthem before playing Serbia. It was the same for him at the 2005 World Cup. “You think of the players in all the countries that want to be footballers and at this precise moment, I’m one of 11 of them. I’m the best,” he recalls. “That was a massive achievement and something I’ll always remember.”

Peter Crouch has partnered with Alpro to celebrate the expansion of its Plant Protein range. Visit alpro.com/uk to find out more