While the summer holidays are on everyone elses minds, the England players get done to some serious training.



The squad are well-aware of what they will be up against in China but Asante believes that they have what it takes to compete at the highest level, and that the hard work they are putting in now will pay off come August.

“We are all pushing ourselves that bit extra in preparation for the World Cup. We are all working extremely hard to do all our sessions, whether it be endurance, strength or speed work, and I definitely feel that I will hit my peak when the finals come around.”

The players are certainly putting in the hours over the summer to make sure that they will be on top of their game for their opening match against Japan in September.

“At the moment we are doing our fitness testing and a range of jump tests. There is a sprint test which we will do later on, and endurance tests. It is challenging but we all have targets and we are always trying to push ourselves.

“Strength and power are important parts of the game in general, but in the terms of our preparation we are going to be playing strong opposition in the shape of Germany and the USA, so we want to push ourselves so that we can compete and hopefully win.”

Confidence is clearly high in the England camp and if the summer training sessions continue to go well then the squad should be in with a real chance of success.

“We have got about 14 weeks of training in total and we are at phase one at the moment. We have got a lot of endurance work and strength work to do and we will step up the intensity in the next five weeks.

“It is great to have a programme that incorporates all the general aspects of the game - speed, endurance, fitness, strength. It just enables me to be able to mix it up, and improve my speed and all my strength.

“The squad are all looking strong and fit at the moment and we are all looking to just keep following our programs, and I am sure by the time it comes to the world cup, we will play some great football.”