Portugal won all 10 of their qualifiers but their preparations for the June 14 to July 14 tournament in Germany have been far from perfect with losses to Slovenia and Croatia in recent friendlies.

Gareth Southgate’s side are among the favourites to win the continental crown, three years on from falling agonisingly short in the final of the last edition of the tournament.

England jetted off to Germany on Monday afternoon and midfielder Rice says there is an inherent belief in the group that they can be crowned kings of Europe for the first time.

England, who kick off their Euros campaign against Serbia on Sunday, headed to Germany reeling from a shock 1-0 defeat to Iceland in their final friendly.

But Declan Rice says the disappointment does not detract from what was a beneficial 10-day training camp.

“It’s obviously difficult when you finish the league. Your body completely shuts down when you have a break, because we’re made to just play all the time,” the 25-year-old said on England’s departure show on YouTube.

“When we have a rest, our body shuts down and it’s hard to get going again but last week was really beneficial, to be honest with you, I think for everyone.

“We’ve got another full week now until the game, so we’ll be in a really good spot.”

“We want to make history,” the Arsenal midfielder said after of England’s Euro 2024 campaign. “We say it all the time, but genuinely we have a group, a manager, that really believes.

“We have a confidence that we can go there and do something really special and, of course, with that comes hard work. That is going to be the main thing – the hard work as a team, unity, togetherness and with everyone behind us at home.

“We’re going to feel that for sure, so stick with us, be positive and let’s see what happens.”

Netherlands midfielder Frenkie de Jong has been ruled out of the European Championship after failing to recover from an ankle injury, dealing a blow to the team’s chances.

The Dutch football federation announced the Barcelona star would not be available for Euro 2024 in Germany after Ronald Koeman‘s team beat Iceland 4-0 in their final warmup. De Jong watched from the bench on Monday in Rotterdam.

“He won’t be fit enough to play at this level for the next three weeks,” Koeman said. “There’s no point keeping him with us.”

The Barcelona striker left the field with an apparent thigh problem after 32 minutes of the Poles’ last-gasp 2-1 victory in Warsaw.

To compound matters, fellow forward Karol Swiderski was also substituted after suffering an ankle injury while celebrating scoring the opening goal on 12 minutes.

Gareth Southgate’s England squad have arrived at their remote base in Germany to ramp up their European Championship preparations.

The Euro 2020 runners-up are considered among the favourites to go one better and lift the trophy in Berlin on 14 July.

England begin their quest to become kings of the continent in Sunday’s Group C opener against Serbia in Gelsenkirchen, around 200 miles from their tournament base.

It wasn’t the only new thing Kane had to endure. Although he has obviously experienced trophy disappointment on many occasions, it has never been when success was so expected. Kane had made the hard choice to leave Tottenham Hotspur for Bayern, only to suddenly find success wasn’t coming easy for the perennial German champions. It did hit him.

The striker still registered this most painful of seasons – as he put it himself – in the way he always does. He internalised it and persevered. It was why the banquet suited him more than most. It helped “get on with it”, in the way he always does.

The last goal scored in a European Championship in Germany was the greatest in the tournament’s history. Some would say the greatest in footballing history. Marco van Basten’s volley combined vision and technique, power and geometrical precision. It condemned the Soviet Union, the competition’s inaugural winners in 1960, to defeat in the final of Euro ‘88. It sailed past Rinat Daseyev, the goalkeeper whose nickname of the “Iron Curtain” reflected geopolitics at the time.

Expect to see Van Basten’s volley replayed a lot over the next five weeks: when the Netherlands play, when there are games in Munich, whenever anyone scores a wonderful goal. Don’t expect to see the Soviet Union; or not the national team Fifa regards as its successor, anyway. As Vladimir Putin pursues what many people around eastern Europe believe is his quest to expand Russia’s borders to those of the old USSR, the most easterly representatives in Euro 2024 are instead Georgia and Ukraine. Under Putin, Russia has invaded areas of both at various points in the last two decades.

Charity fundraiser Russ Cook has said he is “buzzing to be back on the road again” as he announced he will be running to Germany to support England in their Euro 2024 campaign.