It was the sort of joyous, uplifting interview that you dream about.
In a dimly lit changing room at Newcastle United’s training ground, the winter wind whipping across the pitches outside, Dan Burn lit the place up.
He was approaching the year anniversary of his dream move “back home” from Brighton & Hove Albion and was on brilliant form, talking presciently about how it felt “inevitable” that this generation of Newcastle players would end the club’s long wait for a trophy.
But when talk turned to England, the smile thinned.
The 2022 World Cup was on the horizon and Gareth Southgate had just picked his 55-man provisional squad.
Dan Burn was too tall for the microphone pic.twitter.com/EKFv7oquvY
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) July 6, 2026Burn, who had started more games than any other eligible defender that season, was not in it.
“I’m not holding my breath,” he sighed. “When the squad comes out and I’m not in, I won’t be crying at home.”
Burn always believed that his skillset – he is versatile, almost always fit and defensively as disciplined as they come – would transfer seamlessly to international football.
The issue was finding a manager prepared to give him a chance.
Thomas Tuchel has done that and been rewarded for his faith with an unlikely World Cup hero.
For in a team of polished diamonds, Burn is the everymam who has become this tournament’s undisputed cult figure.
His famous back story – pushing trolleys at Asda in Blyth, getting up at 3am to wash his kit while at Darlington – means Burn is someone that supporters can relate to.
With no gilded route through a Premier League academy available, he has had to work harder than anyone else in the squad to prove himself and those struggles have stuck with him.
He takes nothing about his privileged position for granted, stopping to speak in every mixed zone and accepting almost every invitation that comes his way from charities in his hometown of Northumberland.
Burn is a fantastic role model, advocating for better understanding of mental health and recently talking passionately about his own struggle with impostor syndrome in the hope of inspiring others to defeat their demons.
Burn poses with the trophy after Newcastle win the Carabao Cup final (Photo: Getty)A devoted father and son, his family have followed him in America, watching every game even when there were no guarantees that he would get minutes.
His dad David is a regular, recognisable fixture at Newcastle and England away days.
None of that would matter if he couldn’t play but – as he has reminded everyone in the last two games – he most certainly can.
It has irked Burn a little to be depicted as a “good tourist”, even if he has embraced his World Cup experience by attending baseball and an Ella Langley concert in Kansas City.
But in among the good-humoured anecdotes, Burn has been at pains to remind everyone that he has the pedigree to start games if Tuchel requires him to.
And as anyone who has watched him flourish in the most important games Newcastle have played in the last four years would attest, Burn is the man for the big occasion.
Burn stands over Leo Ostigard after winning the aerial battle (Photo: Getty)His performance in the Azteca – summoned from the bench to help 10 men repel a green wave – is one of the great England cameos, made even more remarkable for the fact it was his first World Cup minutes.
That he headed two clearances past the halfway line was the warm-up for shutting out Norway in extra time on Saturday.
The image of him standing over the prone Norway defender Leo Ostigard after a magnificent headed clearance added to the legend that is building around Burn.
Those magnificent defensive displays bring legitimacy to Burn’s belief that he was always good enough to play for England.
But what has made him so popular this summer is his humility, the sense that he has not forgotten his roots or where he came from.
If you can, seek out the video of Burn watching the BBC’s 3D footage of the final minutes against Mexico.
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Opinion: Six reasons England will win the World Cup Exclusive: Inside Newcastle’s four-transfer battleplan after Johan Manzambi snubIt is proper feel-good stuff and what he says at the end is just perfect.
“Do you know what I think? It’s class, obviously, playing in these games. It’s absolutely unreal,” he says.
“But a little bit of us wants to be in the crowd and watch me do it. When I see all my family watching it I wish I was too. It’s such a weird feeling.” Burn really is one of us.
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