The club versus country debate for footballers is nothing new.
Whether it was Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United stars picking up minor injuries before international breaks or players calling time on their England careers somewhat prematurely, club and national team schedules are often not as compatible as they should be.
That issue raised its head this summer, when FIFA’s newly expanded Club World Cup competition in the USA clashed with a number of other tournaments, including the European Under-21 Championship which was played in Slovakia.
James McAtee’s club versus country decision
For James McAtee, this meant a decision had to be made, as the midfielder had the opportunity to head stateside with Manchester City, or to build on his recent momentum with Lee Carsley’s England U21s, having recently been handed the captain’s armband.
“I felt I was going to be more impactful at the Euros,” McAtee tells FourFourTwo. “I helped the under-21s get to the Euros, so to miss out would have been heartbreaking. I was a big part of the team and knew I’d be the captain – I’d been captain at a previous camp, and I’d seen that Taylor Harwood-Bellis was injured.”
McAtee knew that his game time would likely have been limited at the Club World Cup, having been a substitute for for 18 of his 27 appearances, with the club having bought Tijjani Reijnders and Rayan Cherki ahead of the tournament.
While the likes of Jobe Bellingham and Liam Delap opted to head to the Club World Cup, McAtee’s decision to link up with Carsley and England would quickly been proved right, as City lost to Al Hilal in the last-16 in the United States, while England would go all the way and successfully defend the crown they won two years earlier.
Lee Carsley’s Young Lions went all the way, coming alive in a 3-1 quarter-final win over Spain. It was a rematch of a feisty Under-21 Euros final in 2023. McAtee put England ahead. “It took me a while to get used to being captain,” he admits, having rarely performed the role before, for club or country. “In the first game of the tournament, it was weighing on me a bit, but I spoke with Lee, he gave me help and advice, and I settled into it.
“Spain were our biggest competitors, and there’d been a bit of trouble last time when the other lads played them, so we were looking forward to that game the most. The early goal helped – I was proud to get my first goal at the tournament and it calmed the nerves.”
The semi-final and final took McAtee back to Tehelne Pole in Bratislava, the stadium where he’d scored his first Champions League goal eight months earlier. He was the man of the match in the final, providing an assist for Omari Hutchinson as England beat Germany.
“It’s something that I’ll remember for the rest of my career, winning and celebrating it together after the lads had been together for a whole month,” he says. Senior boss Thomas Tuchel was there to offer his congratulations, too. “We saw him after the game, he was very excited,” McAtee adds.
After winning the Under-21 Euros, is the dream to make his full England debut in the future? “Yeah, one day – not right now, but one day,” he says. “I’ve got a big mountain to climb with the players that are in my position, but it’s something I’m going to try hard to do.
"Of course, the aim is to try to reach the top – that’s everyone’s aim, isn’t it?”
