Euro 2012: Gary Neville revels in life with ego-less squad

Goodbye hubris, hello humility. England's softly softly task-force step out in the Olympic Stadium on Sunday, a group of footballers now devoid of "ego" according to the coach Gary Neville. Arrogance has left the building.

Neville was a member of the so-called golden generation that failed to shine under Sven-Goran Eriksson and Steve McClaren (and continued under Fabio Capello after the right-back had played the last of his 85 internationals in 2007). Neville saw the red-carpet treatment, heard certain team-mates blowing their own trumpets. Never the type to feel comfortable in the self-promotion society, he admires the low-key tone under Roy Hodgson.

Even the wags are more into pushing a pram than looking glam. Even Wayne Rooney has not reprised the "big man" bravado of 2006, giving a disciplined display on his return from suspension against Ukraine. Even Steven Gerrard has resisted the 70-yard passes. Even John Terry, such a strong character, has kept his head down off the pitch. On the pitch, Terry has held his head high, performing superbly, second only to Gerrard. Youngsters like Danny Welbeck and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain help, bringing a breath of fresh air into the camp.

"I believe it is a squad without ego,'' said Neville, standing by the touchline at Hutnik, chatting freely as the players trained yards away. "They are all working for one another and you can see that on the pitch. The greatest demonstration of that spirit is the way in which they play for each other and fought for each other.

"There is no star in the group. We have got big characters in the dressing-room but they are all fighting for the cause. They'll have to continue to do that because it is going to be damn tough on Sunday."

Especially if they surrender the ball lightly to Daniele De Rossi, Andrea Pirlo and Thiago Motta. England continue to be too careless in possession. "We don't go out on the training pitch and say: 'I tell you what we're going to do. Today we're going to work on giving the ball away and we're going to defend'. We try and be as expansive as we possibly can. We try and keep the ball. It doesn't always work. They are good at keeping the ball. There are four or five players in our squad I genuinely believe would be in any team in this tournament. But I'm not going to name them." Oh, go on, Gary. He promptly did. "When I look at Rooney, Hart, Terry, Ashley Cole, Lescott as well, you'd go a long way to find players at this tournament who are better in those individual positions than those. We've got some real top players there.

"We were never going to get the full Rooney in the first hit. We're hoping that comes Sunday and beyond.

"And Gerrard is an absolutely brilliant football player. I've said that for 10 or 12 years. You can't live with him when he runs forward.

"He can get to players when he runs back. He's the one who can be at the edge of the box shooting. He can be back at your own box defending, heading it clear.

"He is a complete football player. He is at a good age: 32 is a great age. You're at that point when you just haven't quite gone over the hill. You actually feel fully matured and experienced.'' Alan Shearer might raise an eyebrow at Neville's suggestion that 32 could be a player's peak. Sitting in a dusty hotel lobby in Tirana back in 2001, Neville talked passionately about it being "the right time to move the old guard on", name-checking Shearer as a player of "stature and character" but suggesting his generation had "run out of steam". Shearer was 29 when he last pulled on the Three Lions.

Neville makes such engaging company, and is clearly a considerable influence behind England's new age of enlightenment, that it felt unfair to drag him down memory lane. He was on a roll anyway, enthusing about Gerrard. "It just feels as though it's the right moment for him. It seems like he is relishing the captaincy. You see him dominating the team on the pitch and dragging them forward.

"Against Sweden he was incredible. Ukraine was even better.''

England will need Gerrard at his galvanizing best against Italy. "They have an in-built resilience,'' continued Neville. "They're compact, they don't concede a lot of goals but they actually play more football than a lot of Italian teams in the past: more intricate passing. De Rossi, Pirlo and Motta are excellent football players - intelligent. Italian teams in the past, you would think as playing in stops and starts, be very cynical, create fouls. But this team play to a rhythm, out from the back.'' Towards Mario Balotelli, famously described by Neville as a "clown" in April. The pundit smiled. "He's a talented player,'' said Neville, who insisted England would not be winding up the volatile Italian. "It certainly won't be mentioned by the manager or the coaching staff to go out on to the pitch with that mentality.

"Referees now are stamping on every type of little thing that happens - pulling shirts, standing on people's toes. If you go into the game thinking 'I'll go and try to wind up Balotelli', you could get sent off yourself. He's been very composed in this tournament.''

Neville himself seems far more agitated on match-days, prowling the technical area, utterly absorbed in the events yards away. "I'm commentating on most of them! You kick every ball. You head every ball. I need to calm down a little bit before I even consider management! I'm just blessed to be here. I feel privileged to be here and to have been asked to come and be a coach under Roy, contributing as much as I possibly can. I really am just learning the ropes."

Before returning to training, Neville had one final thought, make that quarter-final thought. "I know there has been a great deal of playing down expectations but we'll be absolutely gutted if we don't go through.

There is no point trying to play down the fact that 'Oh we've got to the quarters' and that's par. The real achievement would be to go through. It wouldn't be to go home gracefully after Sunday."

The egos have gone, but the will to win remains.