Gareth Southgate’s ingenious plan to keep England squad out of trouble this World Cup How do you keep 23 England players occupied and out of trouble during a World Cup? Surround them with pine […]

How do you keep 23 England players occupied and out of trouble during a World Cup? Surround them with pine trees, stick Love Island on one telly and Fortnite on another.

That appears to be the foundation of England manager Gareth Southgate’s plan, the glue holding everything together in Russia.

The players are so obsessed with Love Island that when told they could receive only four British channels in their hotel, they voted for BBC and ITV to watch the games, Sky Sports News to keep up with club affairs back home… and ITV2.

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A large contingent of the squad are equally obsessed with the video game Fortnite, which has taken the nation’s children and teenagers by storm and become the scourge of headteachers and parents.

Masterful distractions

In a masterful sleight-of-hand, Southgate is encouraging the players to take responsibility for themselves, encouraging their maturity, in marked contrast to the stricter regimes imposed by previous managers.

Helping matters along, he picked a team hotel in Repino, a quaint coastal resort about 40km from Saint Petersburg, that is surrounded by forests and is worlds away from the frenzy of

the World Cup.

The England team base is filled with a treasure trove of video games and other technology.

PlayStation VRs, driving simulators and a golf simulator are available, as are more traditional distractions such as table-tennis tables, pool tables and courts for basketball and volleyball.

Indeed, the players have organised a table-tennis championship: midfielder Jordan Henderson is the current champion.

The ‘dentist’s chair’

“There are a lot of things for us to do around the hotel to pass the time, so we have settled in really well,” says midfielder Jesse Lingard. “[There are] little relaxing zones we can go into.”

The FA has spent thousands transporting its own gym equipment to the hotel – because players these days actually like spending time in the gym.

It’s a far cry from the football drinking culture of the 90s – an era that Southgate emerged from remarkably unscathed.

As a young defender newly introduced to the England squad in 1996, he was advised by his fellow pro Stuart Pearce, then a veteran of England camps, to avoid a night out with the rest of the team on a pre-tournament warm-up tour to the Far East.

That night resulted in the infamous “dentist’s chair” incident, in which players were strapped down and had drink after drink poured down their throats.

‘Boredom is for boring people’

These days, certainly for younger people, fun isn’t necessarily about getting hammered. Youngsters quite like having fully-operational livers and walking around without an extra two stone wrapped around their midriff.

For footballers, boredom isn’t really a big issue any more, but that doesn’t stop journalists asking about it.

“Boredom is for boring people,” was Southgate’s dry response.

With a plethora of tablets, smartphones, high-speed wireless broadband, PlayStations, XBoxes, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram available to his players, you can see his point.

“A lot of [the squad] are playing this game called Fortnite at the minute but it’s not my game,” said defender Phil Jones prior to the tournament. “I just watch Netflix and a few films, FaceTime, it’s simple.”

It is not like Southgate’s day, when a card club involving players such as Stuart Pearce, Tony Adams and Teddy Sheringham offered the biggest diversion.

Blackouts and barbecues

Others tried desperately to keep the preternaturally talented manchild Paul Gascoigne entertained. Gazza spent his time running from the badminton court to the snooker hall until goalkeeper David Seaman took him fishing to give everyone else a rest. Southgate and his card club friends, meanwhile, would have a scone with clotted cream at 4pm. (He was devastated when the cream was banned.)

Nowadays, there are almost too many distractions on offer and Southgate could be forgiven for worrying whether his players are getting enough sleep.

And sleep, in Repino, is problematic. The sun does not go down until after 11pm and rises again at around 3am. The FA has installed blackout blinds in the players’ rooms – although midfielder Eric Dier had to adjust his at 4am on the first night after being woken by light.

When it comes to food, there are also plenty of options to keep things interesting. The days of buffets offering pasta, rice or the latest dietary recommendation are long gone. The England players have barbecues and special themed food nights.

When some Premier League clubs take trips, the staff have to wait while players get their food first. Not in Repino. Southgate makes sure that everyone mingles at meal times, so a goalkeeping coach could find themselves chatting to star winger Raheem Sterling at dinner and a physio might have coffee with defender Gary Cahill, the squad’s most experienced player, at breakfast.

Freedom to roam

Neither are the players imprisoned as they have been by other England managers. In Repino, they have been told to be sensible but are welcome to wander out. Popular destinations include the pharmacy, the 24-hour supermarket, the shop selling random tourist tat and the quiet beachfront.

They are also free to take the train into Saint Petersburg with family and friends on the rare days when they are not required to play or train.

Psychological support is the one area that Southgate has admitted is not as developed as he might like.

“We have a department now that is just established to work on the development of both players and staff, but it won’t be the answer to every [problem] that we might have,” he says.

If all else fails, stick on Love Island and Fortnite, and leave them to it.