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Football

07th Jul 2018

Gary Lineker blown away by “extraordinary” Gareth Southgate lookalike

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Darragh Murphy

This man won’t be able to walk down any street in Samara this weekend without being hounded.

One supporter in the Samara Arena bore an uncanny resemblance to England manager Gareth Southgate and he’s clearly playing up to the likeness.

Despite the 25° temperature, the fan in question pulled on a waistcoat to add to the similarity and ensure that he’d spend much of Saturday’s quarter-final posing for photographs.

At half-time of England’s 2-0 victory over Sweden in the World Cup quarter-final, the BBC cut to a shot of Southgate’s lookalike in the stands and even Gary Lineker was taken aback.

“Is Gareth Southgate… Is that a lookalike? That must be a lookalike. Surely he’s not sitting there,” Lineker said.

“That’s extraordinary. He’s quite similar, isn’t he? Waistcoat and everything!”

England are now just 90 minutes away from a World Cup final and will face either Croatia or Russia in the second semi-final on Wednesday evening.

“We knew it was going to be such a different game to the other night and to come back, having had extra-time and penalties with the emotion of it and the energy of it, and we had to lift ourselves for a completely different test,” the real Southgate said after the game.

“It’s always a scrappy game against Sweden. They don’t let you play. We had to withstand a lot of physical pressure but the resilience and togetherness of the team today was crucial.”