Nike Launches England Matters Video Series - Football News

With one year to go until Brazil, you could be mistaken in thinking that England's two summer friendlies against Ireland and Brazil were pretty meaningless. But with everything to play for in terms of cementing a place in the squad for Rio that was not the case for Sturridge and Oxlade-Chamberlain. This new behind-the-scenes video from Nike illustrates how the two players feel when pulling on their countries colours.

The first half is narrated mainly by Sturridge, describing what it means to him to play for England and how he felt when he found out he was in England's starting XI for the first time against Ireland. Sturridge is refreshingly honest about his place in the squad saying "For now I’m a work in progress, I understand I’m not a complete player and I’m gladly doing the work because I understand I need to improve.”





On to Brazil, the second half covers 'the Ox' talking about the flair that Brazilian's have as well as the influence of his dad, ex England player Mark Chamberlain. “I’ve seen people playing in the street, they’re very experimental with a lot of flair, and it does make you want to try stuff. They’re just doing it for a laugh but their tricks and their skills are probably a lot better than a lot of professional footballers.”

With statements like “In any walk of life, never mind football, you’ve always got to be appreciative of the opportunities you get. You’ve always got to have self belief, but you can never let that self belief be overtaken with too much arrogance because you’ve got to realise that anyone can take your place at any moment.” Oxlade-Chamberlain, like Sturridge, comes across as being pretty level headed and isn't taking anything for granted.



The video, which looks set to be the first in a series, is another part of Nike's campaign that has centred around the importance of pulling on an England shirt. Using #theshirt, Nike have already taken to twitter to motivate the squad and launched a highly interactive retail campaign. It's a decent watch that already has us looking forward to who they will feature next and to Rio 2014.

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