England’s Jack Grealish admits he loved making his full competitive debut for the Three Lions on Sunday night.
The Aston Villa playmaker collected his fourth senior cap in the UEFA Nations League match with Belgium and despite the 2-0 defeat in Leuven, the game will be remembered for Grealish’s performance.
And he’s now hoping that he’s played his way into Gareth Southgate’s future plans having first broke into the senior set up at the start of the season.
"I absolutely loved it, for me, this is what I've been waiting for,” said Grealish, who had previously played under Southgate for the MU21s back in 2016.
"These are the games that I've dreamt of playing in, against the number one ranked team in the world, and I absolutely loved it out there.
"I grew up wanting to play for England and I think everyone that knows me knows I just love playing football.
"I knew this was my chance to try and impress but these are the things that I love, the pressure of wanting to do well.
"But overall, it's a team game and we wanted to go out there and win tonight but I'm devastated that we couldn't get the win.”
The 24 year old also revealed he spent the day leading up to the game by watching clips of some of his favourite players in action to give him some extra inspiration.
"Over the past 24 hours, I've been watching clips of my favourite players, people like De Bruyne and Coutinho and players that are in my position,” he explained.
"It's what I've done since I was a little kid and I still do it to this day and I have no shame in saying that - it's what gets me going before football matches
"I like to do it before every game and I've just been buzzing for the game, there's been no nerves, I've just been excited and wanted it to start.
"I'm just gutted we couldn't get the win because that's what we wanted to do.”
