This Wednesday, Gordon attended England's pre-match press conference ahead of their match against Spain. In the second part of the press conference (which we've divided into five parts due to its length), he reflected on the World Cup.

For you personally, this World Cup was a breakthrough—you scored crucial goals and started multiple times. If England faces top teams again in the future, should players take a more proactive approach to controlling the game? The coach has always emphasized "control" as a key concept.

That's right. With this experience, the next time we're in such a situation, we'll choose a different approach. That's why I say scars aren't necessarily a bad thing; they might lead us to victory in the next major tournament.

It's not just about that one game. The England team itself lacks the kind of control over possession that Spain has. It's not inherent to us, and I'm not sure whether it can be acquired through training. Now that I'm playing in Spain, I can say more objectively that their approach to possession is completely different from what I experienced playing in England.

Perhaps we'll never develop that trait, but we can definitely improve or take a different path and leverage our own strengths: physicality, direct play, and counter-attacking. There isn't one perfect way to win, and future developments are worth looking forward to.

First, congratulations on your strong start to the season at Barcelona. What have you learned about ball control? Tuchel said that controlling the game isn't an inherent trait of England. What are your thoughts from your time at Camp Nou?

As I just mentioned, ball control isn't an inherent trait of English players, and I only fully realized this after coming to Spain. English and Spanish players receive similar football training; we both control the ball, but Spanish players' decision-making ability on the pitch is innate.

Sometimes when I see them make choices on the field, I wonder how they spotted that opportunity. Their football intelligence is inherently different, and it's difficult to explain why. But as I said, we can't simply imitate others. We are English, and we have advantages they don't. Perhaps we should play to our strengths.

Many consider Rodri the best player of this World Cup. How significant was it for Real Madrid to miss out on signing him?

Everyone in England knows this, so I don't need to say much. We've admired his play for a long time, and I've played against him—I've always known how strong he is. Now that I can be his teammate, I'm incredibly happy. He's a football genius: calm under pressure and almost never loses the ball. When I played against him before, I always felt he was one step ahead. Having a teammate like him makes the whole team feel more secure with his composure.

Comparing the squads and results of England, Spain, and France, the difference on paper doesn't seem that significant, and England even has a coach who has won the Champions League. So we shouldn't be that far from success, right?

Indeed, we're not far off. We played the defending champions in the semi-finals, and we could have won that match. In my opinion, for the first 60 minutes, we were the better side. We lost after the situation changed, and that's football. There's no absolute truth in football; dominating an opponent for 60 minutes doesn't guarantee a win.

Spain has also been ahead by a goal and then lost. This isn't just an England problem; we simply lost at that moment. I don't think there's a huge gap between us. If we had reached the final against Spain, I was very confident we could have won, but unfortunately we didn't get that far, so we'll never know.

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