England squad friendship groups revealed – from the ‘Bolo Boys’ to ‘Wolf Crew’

The ‘Bolo Boys’, the ‘Sheriffs’, the ‘Wolf Crew’.

They sound like the kinds of names given to groups of European ‘ultra’ fans, or young men about to head out on a stag weekend. Instead, they are just some of the tags used by England’s footballers as new friendships are formed and old alliances strengthened at this European Championship.

Long gone are the days when club cliques dominated England international duty, with players from Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal later admitting that they often stuck with their ‘tribe’, such was the intensity of the domestic rivalry.

They readily admitted they wanted to tear strips off each other when they met in the Premier League and that it was difficult to move on from those differences when asked to come together on England duty. Jamie Redknapp, the former Liverpool midfielder, even said the factionalism had made international duty “a chore”.

In Germany this month, where England continue their Euro 2024 challenge against Denmark in Frankfurt today (Thursday) in the second of three group games, there are no such divisions. There are breakaway groups within the overall squad of 26 but the mood at their luxurious base, the Spa & GolfResort Weimarer Land near Blankenhain, is one of unity. If England fall short of winning this competition, splits behind the scenes will not be the cause.

How to follow Euro 2024 and Copa America on The Athletic…

The greater spread of clubs represented among the 26 helps too. At the 2006 World Cup, also staged by Germany, manager Sven-Goran Eriksson’s squad was drawn from 10 clubs; Gareth Southgate’s class of 2024 has representatives from 14, and friendship groups which cross club divides.

Jude Bellingham and Trent Alexander-Arnold are a good example. The pair are so close that Alexander-Arnold’s Liverpool hoped it would help them in their pursuit of Borussia Dortmund midfielder Bellingham last summer. He instead joined Real Madrid for an initial €103million (£87m; $111m at today’s rates), which could rise by an additional 30 per cent if add-ons are met, but their bond has remained.

That much was obvious when Bellingham scored what proved the only goal against Serbia in Sunday’s group opener, with the pair doing a joint celebration in a nod to the ‘Wolf Crew’, a group of England squad members and support staff who play ‘Wolf’ – a role-playing game related to ‘Mafia’, where players are assigned to be either villagers or wolves, with each group trying to deceive the other.

Alexander-Arnold is also close to Aaron Ramsdale, the reserve goalkeeper, having roomed together when playing for England Under-17s.

“I remember going into my room one time, I opened the door and see some kid from Stoke just in there,” Alexander-Arnold previously said of his first encounter with Ramsdale. “Some goalie I don’t know. I’m thinking, ‘Who the hell did they stick me with here?’.

“Because I’m not good with new people. I’m not good at all with new people. I struggle to open up, so when I don’t know people… I don’t mean it, I just can’t open up, I can’t be myself around them.

“But as soon as we started talking, we started laughing, (it was) ‘blah blah blah’, got on like a house on fire.”

Alexander-Arnold and Ramsdale used to have Harry Potter marathons in their room, watching a new movie from the series every night. That relationship has only strengthened since their room-mate days.

Southgate’s squad for Euro 2024 includes 12 players who have not been to a major tournament with England before, although plenty had been involved in international camps with their current colleagues.

For Kobbie Mainoo, 19, and Cole Palmer, 22, two Manchester-born players who are at their first senior-level national-team competition, there is plenty to chat about, while Brighton & Hove Albion centre-back Lewis Dunk said last week that he has struck up a friendship with Dean Henderson, Southgate’s third-choice goalkeeper.

Adam Wharton, also at his first tournament with the full England side, noted how “all the lads have made it very easy” for him to integrate. “They are all happy to chat,” Wharton said.

Wharton is joined in the squad by three of his Crystal Palace team-mates — Henderson, Marc Guehi and Eberechi Eze.

New boys like Adam Wharton have settled quickly (Richard Pelham/Getty Images)

Guehi is close friends with Chelsea’s Conor Gallagher, with the pair coming through the London club’s academy, playing together on loan at Swansea City in the 2019-20 season and also both being in the England Under-17s team that won their World Cup in October 2017 — as was Phil Foden of Manchester City — and have passed the time in Germany by racing each other on the computer game Mario Kart.

Declan Rice of Arsenal — another London-based player — is somewhat of a social butterfly inside the camp and has struck up a friendship with another, Brentford’s Ivan Toney. They recently appeared on Lions Den, a show produced inside the England camp, and spoke about how close they have become.

Asked who he would take to a desert island, Rice said: “It’s an easy answer, the man next to me. We’re on the same wavelength, we have the same interests, like the same music. We have the same hobbies. We just get on really well. So, definitely Ivan.”

Toney added: “I don’t think we would be worried about being stuck, we would just catch jokes.”

Striker Toney is part of a group called the ‘Bolo Boys’, a slang reference to being muscular, which includes Rice, Joe Gomez, Eze and Ezri Konsa, with other players dipping in and out.

New bromance in the making 🤗#LionsDen connected by @EE 🦁 pic.twitter.com/5n97wyAQgq

— England (@England) June 18, 2024

Other groups exist, too. Bellingham and Alexander-Arnold were part of a group called the ‘Sheriffs’, which included James Maddison and Jordan Henderson, who both failed to make the final squad for these Euros. Another collective – the ‘Avengers’, the name given to a WhatsApp group of players – was effectively broken up when three members, Jack Grealish, Maddison and Ben Chilwell, were left out of Southgate’s 26.

New players are adding a different dynamic to the environment in Germany.

Mainoo, the teenage Manchester United midfielder called up after an impressive debut season that included scoring the decisive goal in the FA Cup final win over Manchester City last month, has been poking fun at his cross-city rivals Foden, Kyle Walker and John Stones.

Stones, too, has enjoyed winding up his team-mates. The City centre-back sat alongside Newcastle full-back Kieran Trippier at the back of England’s media room in Blankenhain and heckled goalkeeper Jordan Pickford as he played darts against a member of the media.

And as Bellingham walked through the mixed zone after that Serbia match in Gelsenkirchen, where multiple cameras and reporters had gathered, Stones quipped, “En Espanol?” (‘In Spanish?’), as Bellingham headed towards the team’s bus, prompting the Madrid-based midfielder to laugh.

Manchester United left-back Luke Shaw, who made the squad despite not playing for club or country since February 18 after sustaining a calf injury, is also popular, along with Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka.

Players in Southgate’s squad this summer have been passing time by hanging around by the pool area, playing card game Uno, as well as basketball and padel, or practising with a golf simulator and an indoor putting mat.

England’s players can fine-tune their putting between games (Richard Pelham/Getty Images)

Another game that went down well was foot volleyball, which saw players team up in their first training session to compete against each other.

Harry Kane, the captain, partnered with former Tottenham Hotspur team-mate Trippier and the pair went unbeaten, with their final match being refereed by Southgate. Other pairings included Stones and Walker, Bellingham and Alexander-Arnold, Konsa and Saka, and Eze and striker Ollie Watkins.

While the inflatable unicorn pool toys, made famous at the World Cup in Russia six years ago, are yet to return and capture the imagination of supporters back in England, the camp is, thus far, a happy one.

Results always help dictate moods but, for now, Southgate has successfully continued to create a culture that has players wanting to be on international duty.

(Top photo: Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)