The last time the European Championship was staged in Germany back in 1988, the fag-end of a violent era, it was suggested both the UK government and the English Football Association were quietly grateful for the team’s early exit as it meant the whole thing was cut short before England’s caravan of pain, fight-gestures and frisbeeing table tops could do any lasting damage.
This time around England’s progress to Sunday’s final has been largely serene. Four weeks in to Euro 2024 the most shocking displays of antisocial behaviour have been reserved for the Deutsche Bahn train departure boards, which are, in fairness, unstinting in their commitment to rolling updates on exactly how many additional hours travellers will need to spend wedged into a urine-soaked corridor outside Duisburg while a man from Egham sings Phil Foden’s On Fire very close to the nape of your neck.
Still, though, there is a slight sense of foreboding about Sunday’s final in Berlin. How is this thing going to play out? How will a different kind of anger express itself this time? There is a theory the worst thing Gareth Southgate could do right now, from a vibes, energy and legacy perspective, is actually win these Euros.
Getting to a final has been bad enough. People are already furious. Winning a final, well, that’s really going to do it. Perhaps in the end Southgate’s real crime is to give people what they want, or at least what they say they want. Never do that. If you do, they’ll never forgive you for it.
This odd note of rancour has been the background noise to England’s progress so far, from a spluttering hill-start in Gelsenkirchen, through the death-football of the next four games, to glimpses of clarity against the Netherlands.
Southgate may have led England to a first overseas men’s tournament final, an all-time high achieved through admirable care and planning. But he has done this while also somehow making large parts of the football-spectating public feel unhappy, cheated and wronged.
Disappointment, frustration, betrayal, squandered riches: this has been the mood music. So much so that for many of those watching, the case against Southgate seems to be pretty much open and shut at this point, his guilt undeniable. The only element missing is something to actually charge him with.
To be fair, each week in Germany has brought talk of some fresh flaw, wheeled out in the hope that it might just stick. These have verged from the madness of picking an injured left-back who isn’t going to play a single minute (Luke Shaw appearances in the past two games: two); to the dropping of Jack Grealish (more than covered by Cole Palmer); to a fatal tactical rigidity (see also: seamless shift of formation mid-tournament); to the lack of minutes for Ollie Watkins (outcome: Watkins comes on and scores one of England’s greatest winning goals).
This has been the task at hand, a fevered search for evidence of failure, even when failure has not yet happened. Before going into why this is necessary, let alone what may happen in the final, it is worth looking at this week’s chief objection, the current wisdom on exactly why and how Southgate is in fact holding his own team back, as opposed to enabling their success.
This centres on Southgate’s use of substitutes, a potentially vital issue in the final against a more fluent opponent. For the past few days this topic has been the subject of knowing nods, routinely held up as flawed, reactive, impotent, the substitutions of a supply teacher, a beta male, an all-round fraud. Why isn’t Southgate out there smeared in woad, whirling his battleaxe, scalps dangling from his belt hook? Why doesn’t he do something? This is the familiar cry.
Except, he does. The only real point in deconstructing this now is to demonstrate how easy it is for something that is at best just a non-point to be accepted through blind repetition as axiomatically true.
The facts show that not only does Southgate make substitutions in good time, they regularly contribute to the details of victory. At these Euros England have used 26 subs in six games. The first change against Serbia came at 69 minutes, followed by 54 minutes against Denmark, then half-time, 66, 78 and half-time. So the average pattern is: first change on 59 minutes, followed by three more after that. This hardly qualifies as unusually static. The game is long. Patience is also a tactic, and one that has so far worked well.
The next objection is that Southgate’s subs don’t affect the game, or even that they affect it adversely. In reality England have yet to concede a goal at these Euros after a substitution. Three knockout games have been won after Southgate introduced his subs. The aggregate score in that post-subs time is 4-0 to England. Ivan Toney (sub) assisted the winner versus Slovakia. Toney, Palmer and Trent Alexander-Arnold (subs) scored in the shootout against Switzerland. Palmer and Watkins (subs) combined for the winner against the Netherlands.
There is room to disagree with the content and timing, albeit those alternative realities will never be tested. But it takes an act of will, and an impressive degree of cognitive dissonance, to interpret this as a manager being bad, as opposed to quite good, at shuffling his pack.
The only real objection left is that Southgate should have just done this all earlier. Stop winning slowly! Win quicker! Although of course it doesn’t actually work like that. Timing is everything with these changes. Elements of context come into play, such as Watkins being super‑fresh, the Dutch defence playing a higher line in those fatigued dying minutes.
Who has the best seat to make a call on these details? A manager who is dealing close up with humans in a state of high stress, who knows how his players feel, what their energy levels are, communicates with them during the game; or a spectator honking at shapes on a screen? Plus of course, not making a change is also decisive. Keeping Bukayo Saka and Harry Kane on the pitch when they might have been hooked, then seeing them score vital late goals. This is active, not passive.
It feels like a live issue before Sunday’s final, when the use of the squad will be surely be key. First, because players on both sides are running through a haze of exhaustion. Freshness, changes of shape, the chance for someone in one of these groups to have a day out, may be decisive factors.
Second, it matters because Spain are not just the best team to this point, but the best at keeping possession. England have made a habit of going behind and whistling up the cavalry. This time that may require some genuine lateral thinking.
And finally it matters because Southgate has been found wanting in the past. England have been unable to reverse the pattern of finals and semi-finals when an opponent begins to take charge. Croatia and Italy had the stronger midfields in 2018 and 2021. They are allowed to play well. But a really A-list tactical manager might have found a way to counter this. Southgate has yet to do it at this level. Sunday could be a chance to fill that blank on his managerial record; and an ultimate test, in both senses of the word.
Will it be enough? This is the final question behind all of this. Decent progress, competent management, an environment for progress have all been created. But English success must always be judged on its own bespoke terms. Clearly this England haven’t played football of the gods, in keeping with almost every other England team ever. Southgate has made mistakes here, most obviously by trying to invent on the hoof a new midfield, a new team of all the talents.
Clearly they have also had some luck, while creating a culture designed foster those fine details, the moments that look like luck from the outside. The point of the job is to enable players to feel good and do good things. When they do this repeatedly it isn’t luck. It’s management.
But perhaps the real problem, in the end, is giving people what they want. Or at least, it is when the thing you want is powerful and all-consuming, but also vague and unrealisable. England football has been in love with the wait for success, in love with it is own romance, the nobility of falling short, the idea of winning as some kind of a coming home, an unsheathing of the sword from the stone, winning better, more decisively, more grandly than anyone has before.
As early as 1982 England’s World Cup squad were singing: “This time, more than any other time, this time, we’re going to find a way.” This time. Finally. Oh, when will we finally do this? England had won the World Cup just 16 years previously. Where does it come from, this unmerited yearning?
In the years since, that need has become a defining characteristic, a place of safety. It has been expertly commodified, transformed into a kind of seasonal costume, the flags and shirts and painted faces, like Santa hats on the town at Chrismas. Even the old pictures of Southgate beaming in a waistcoat held up in the crowd these days feel like period pieces, a hankering after a feeling.
England regret, England yearning. This is a great product. Right up until the moment it comes into contact with the hard reality of what international sport is, and with a pragmatist who says: yes, OK, I know how to at least get closer. Is it meant to feel like this? Do I feel good enough? Will I cease to hurt? Was the hurt actually real?
Spain must, on form, be strong favourites to win on Sunday. Given the profound emotional response to just a taste of English success over the last two Euros, that may be best for everyone’s sake.
