TONY Mowbray is hoping football’s coming home, even though he’ll be home alone watching tonight’s semi-final.

The Blackburn Rovers boss was on the road when England won their quarter final clash with Sweden on Saturday, ahead of Rovers’ first pre-season friendly with Hibernian on Sunday.

But he admitted he will be clocking off from Brockhall just slightly earlier than usual so that he’s home in time for the last four showdown with Croatia tonight.

“I hope it’s coming home,” said Mowbray, when asked if football was, and if he would be watching.

“I’ll probably be in my flat in Blackburn ready for training the next day. It’s a pretty lonely existence sometimes. I’ll work until half six, go home and have a salad and watch the match.

“I was actually driving to Edinburgh to see my family who had come up on the train so I listened (to the quarter finals) on the radio and it kept going out of signal every now and again.

“But I did hear both goals live and I was beeping the horn coming down the M74!

“It’s just really exciting. As someone who loves football who’s really passionate about it I just see a very youthful, energetic side, and team spirit.

“I talked a lot about our team spirit last year and I can see a spirit in that group.

“I can see the team caring about each other, working for each other, tackling for each other. We might play against better footballers but I’m not sure there’s going to be a team with as good a spirit as England.”

Mowbray would not go so far as to compare the England set-up with that of his own at Ewood Park. But he recognised the value of the team spirit that is evident in both squads.

“Every successful team has got a team spirit and I’ve got some really good lads in this dressing room,” he said.

“The test of course is when you lose football matches and how they react and whether it’s a blame culture and someone else’s fault and never their fault.

“Hopefully we all just keep facing in the right direction, working really hard for each other.

“It’s going to be a long, tough season where we are going to lose some matches against some real powerful teams, but I think we’ll give lots of teams problems this year and win some matches and hopefully the spirit of the team can take us a long way.”