"I had a cowboy hat on and cowboy boots — luckily there's no photos kicking about." Dan Burn, six-foot-seven Newcastle centre-back, fully committing to the Kansas City experience while most footballers would barely leave the hotel lobby.
The 34-year-old attended an Ella Langley country concert on Friday night alongside Harry Kane and goalkeeper Jason Steele — though Burn was quick to clarify this wasn't some wild night out. They left before the show ended to make curfew. "I wouldn't call it a 'night out,'" he said, which is perhaps the most English sentence ever spoken on American soil.
England's getting the balance right — so far
A night before the concert, several players caught a Kansas City Royals baseball game. The day in between brought a friends and family visit — Burn's wife flew in from Dallas. Hotel basketball, backgammon, and cards are filling the gaps. England clearly learned something from the miserable, bored squads of World Cups past, and the mood around camp reflects it.
It matters more than it sounds. A relaxed squad is a connected squad, and connection under pressure is what separates teams that exit in the groups from those that go deep. England's opening 4-2 win over Croatia was encouraging in patches, but their defensive shape — especially in the first half — gave up two goals that Burn himself acknowledged were avoidable.
"We've lost possession in an area where we wouldn't want to, reacting to that was players out of position," he said. Honest assessment. The kind of thing you say when you're actually watching the footage and not just protecting your teammates.
Tuesday's test against Ghana
Ghana await on Tuesday in Group L, and while England are favourites, anyone backing clean sheet odds should factor in that first-half Croatia footage before committing. Burn is making his major tournament debut at 34 — zero experience at this level by his own admission — and the defensive unit as a whole is still finding its feet.
The cowboy boots were a one-night thing. Whether the defensive lapses are a one-game thing is the question that actually matters.
