Newcastle United hero Dan Burn eyes World Cup after lastly breaking into the England squad

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Dan Burn has gone from considering he would by no means play for England to dreaming of the World Cup in a whirlwind week that introduced a maiden call-up and a starring function in Newcastle’s Carabao Cup triumph. The 32-year-old has taken the street much less travelled to his boyhood membership and worldwide soccer, having suffered relegation from League Two with Darlington at first of a profession that has seen a number of setbacks.

Dan Burn has gone from considering he would by no means play for England to dreaming of the World Cup (Motion Photographs through Reuters)

Burn rose up the leagues and earned England recognition from new boss Thomas Tuchel, who chosen the Blyth-born defender for the World Cup qualifiers towards Albania and Latvia.

It means an instantaneous Wembley return for the toast of Newcastle, having helped finish a 70-year watch for a serious home trophy by opening the scoring in Sunday’s 2-1 Carabao Cup ultimate win towards Liverpool.

“Definitely had worse weeks,” Burn mentioned with a smile. “It started off with the manager (Tuchel) FaceTiming me on Tuesday, saying that they were debating calling me up and he’d let me know by Thursday.

“Then it got to sort of six o’clock Thursday night and I’d not heard anything, so I said to my wife ‘nothing’s going to happen’ then I got a text saying ‘are you still awake?’ at 10. I was like ‘yeah’ straightaway.

“He said I was very unprofessional for not being in bed for 10 o’clock!” Burn mentioned he instructed Tuchel he may supply simply as a lot off the pitch as on it, with the towering defender arriving at St George’s Park with unwavering perception.

“I’m not just coming in to sort of be a cheerleader and help the boys out,” he mentioned. “I want to play. “I feel like I’ve got the ability to play at international level, and I’ve said it for a long time.”

These possibilities haven’t been forthcoming previously and it was comprehensible that Burn feared the England ship had sailed two months out from his thirty third birthday.

“There was a little bit of chatter around the World Cup in 2022 when I was playing left-back,” he mentioned. “I thought there might have been a chance there. “But I felt it was hard, having never played any international football at all worked against us but also you can’t gain international experience without getting called up, so it was a situation that wasn’t ideal.

“I did genuinely think at 32 that it had probably passed me by but when a new manager came in, there was always that feeling of ‘you never know’.” Burn needs to understand this chance, joking he’ll play proper wing if wanted, because the door to subsequent summer season’s World Cup unexpectedly opened.

“I’d say last Monday it definitely wasn’t on my radar but now it’s got to be my ultimate aim,” he mentioned. “I feel like there are going to be a lot of steps I’m going to have to go through to get there.

“Being in that very first camp is important but I don’t want to be here for no reason. I want to be here to improve and take my chances.”

Such pleasure means he parked Carabao Cup celebrations to capitalise on his England probability. “It was strange,” he mentioned.

“As soon as I left the stadium, my focus had like completely switched to this. “I had my family there and my kids, so we ended up getting on the bus back at about 12 o’clock to the hotel and it was getting a bit rowdy, and I was just ready to go to sleep!

“There will be time to celebrate. I know that the club has put stuff out about a parade on the Saturday when we get back, so I think that’s when I’ll celebrate.

“But at the moment I knew that I’d waited a long time for this opportunity, and I didn’t want to spoil it.”