How Rooney's soft skills are helping England

England manager Roy Hodgson explains how Wayne Rooney's soft skills have helped to mould a new generation of players into a squad fit to take on all comers at UEFA EURO 2016.

UEFA.com: How important is Wayne Rooney to the team?

Hodgson: All your senior players, all of your quality players, all of the players with that level of ability and experience are very, very important to you. So Wayne getting his 100th cap and breaking the record for goals for England, taking on the captaincy – it has been a very important two years for him, and I think he's handled the whole thing very, very well. I think he'll be very happy with the qualifying campaign, and I'm sure he'll be looking to push on into the EUROs.

UEFA.com: What does he bring as team captain?

Hodgson: He brings his professionalism, his dedication to the game, his passion for the game, his experience, his love, if you like, not only of the game but of his fellow players, because he's a very good influence. He's always there for them; he's always giving good advice. He is very much on board with what we're trying to do as a team, and of course he's a useful conduit as a result from the management down to the players. I had no doubt that he would do a good job as captain, and I think these two years have really proved that.

UEFA.com: How has your midfield evolved since Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard retired after the 2014 FIFA World Cup finals?

Hodgson: Every time we think maybe we've hit upon a midfield and a midfield combination that we think might suit us, we lose players to injury. We won the ten [games in qualifying] using an awful lot of players. I wouldn't think that too many teams have had to change as often as we did, and also lose as many important players along the way as we did.

The players these days that I'm working with are very flexible, and now – after two years of working together with this group – we're beginning to get to the stage where we don't have any qualms about looking at the opponents and seeing how we can hurt them most with the players we have, and changing things around.

UEFA.com: There is a lot of hope invested in England's young players – John Stones, Ross Barkley, Dele Alli, Raheem Sterling. How important will they be?

Hodgson: We hope they'll be very important. There's more players. Eric Dier came in from Tottenham and did extremely well, Jamie Vardy has appeared from nowhere, Harry Kane is still only 22 – he was at the Under-21 tournament last summer. But we believe in their talent, and we believe that if they keep doing what they're doing for their club teams in the Premier League – which is a high standard – they should be able to carry that through when they put an England shirt on.

In 2012, I had John Terry, I had Ashley Cole, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard – top players for the country over an awfully long period of time, and they have all retired. Now, the team's average age has come down, so I'm expecting in France to see a team which has great energy, great enthusiasm, good pace and ability. If you can ally that to a good tactical understanding of the game, then you are well on your away.