Written for Gadsbysengland.com
A year ago, to the day, that fateful swing of Mario Mandzukic’s left peg extinguished England’s flickering hopes of reaching a first major final since 1966. As the Croat wheeled away in celebration, the ‘what if’ thoughts had already begun to materialize in the minds of millions of fans across the nation. Could we have done it with a creative midfield player? Should Kane have squared it to Sterling? Could we have killed the game off in the first half? As always with football, we suffer more in imagination than in reality – the borderline psychedelic visions of an English captain lifting the World Cup trophy for the second time were induced by a month of pure footballing bliss in Russia. As the results kept coming, one almost expected to be woken from a hallucinogenic coma at any moment: it simply seemed too good to be true.
It all came to a head, of course, when Kieran Trippier’s free kick nestled so perfectly in the top right-hand corner with just five minutes on the clock. Delirium ensued. The early goal, the opposition having played an hour’s more football over the course of the tournament, the serendipity of the root to the semi-finals; everything seemed to have fallen in to place. It was this that made it so gut-wrenching to watch Southgate’s young lions’ eventual slump to defeat in Moscow that night, the sensation that, above all, this was a missed opportunity.
As the pain subsided however, an unfamiliar and warm post-World Cup glow set in. A country collectively realised that this precocious side had broken a 20-year cycle of international tournaments being enjoyable only for the typically English gallows humour that they inspired. For the first time in a long time, England were coming home as heroes. The relationship between fans and players, one which was previously characterised in terms of its pernicious mutual resentment, now felt like a fresh and exhilarating romance, all candle lit dinners with Jordan Pickford and rom coms with Harry Maguire. The love-in was only intensified by a number of convincing displays in the Nations League group stage as well as back-to-back five goal hauls against the Czech Republic and Montenegro in the European Championship qualifying campaign.
Only now, in the aftermath of England’s anti-climactic exit from the Nations League finals, at the hands of a resurgent but ultimately unremarkable Dutch team, can we truly say we have emerged from the nostalgic fog of the World Cup. It wasn’t a crashing back down to earth as such, rather a gentle reminder that we can’t dine out on our relative success forever, there is work to be done. Over the course of the past 365 days, our captain has received an MBE for his services to football, our manager an OBE – in retrospect, this might seem just a little premature.
Barring a disaster of McClaren-esque proportions however, England will reach the Euros next summer. And, when they do, they will likely kick off as third or fourth favourites – a far cry from the state of affairs at the outset of the World Cup two years previous. This is both a blessing and a curse. The fact England travelled to Russia with almost no expectation of success from back home was undeniably a contributing factor to their success. But underdogs, with almost no exceptions, don’t win international tournaments. Southgate’s time with an England side cast as the overachieving outsiders, the honeymoon period, as they say, is over.
This paradigm shift is reflected in the tone of the debate surrounding the national team. After the defeat to the Netherlands, the emphasis from fans and pundits alike was not on patting England’s young players on the back, but rather on maligning their unforced errors and the apparent inability of some of them to fit into Southgate’s system of playing out from the back. And this, more than anything else, is the distinguishing feature between now and this time last year. Southgate’s modus operandi when he was appointed at the tail end of 2016 was to build a squad capable of competing in Qatar in 2022, now his overachieving side are expected to be there or thereabouts on all fronts, at all times.
365 days ago, we found out football wasn’t coming home. Following this England team in the days since, we’ve enjoyed relative success, but we’ve also discovered its limitations, in its current state at least. Hopefully, the modest disappointment of the Nations League finals flop can serve as something of a road to Damascus moment – for all the hyperbole and adulation of Southgate’s England, we’re not quite there yet. Where ‘there’ is isn’t entirely clear in itself, but there has to be more to come from this crop of players, such is their talent. To varying degrees, they’ve tasted disappointment twice now. We must hope this can inspire them – after all, revolution always comes at a price.
Adam Williams - Portfolio 