It’s almost a shame for Spain. They’ve played the best football, scored the most beautiful goals, beaten all the top teams, but they don’t have the Ring.
Of course, Gareth Southgate may not have secretly forged a magic ring of power from a cursed lump of gold, but his side’s progress to the Euro final makes more sense if we assume he has. How else can you make so many mistakes and get away with it?
Southgate has been England manager for eight years – long enough, you might think, to have a clear idea of who was going to be in the team and how it was going to play. Yet he began the tournament with a defence of four players who had never played together, a midfield of three players who had never played together and a team structure that failed in four consecutive games before he accepted it was time to try a different approach.
Normally, that would be enough to get you eliminated. England fans were so disgusted that when Southgate approached them after the Slovenia game they threw beer at him. In the next game against Slovakia, England came within 30 seconds of elimination. It was just 13 days ago, but it already seems like a grim reminder of a previous life.
One shudders to think of the ridicule that would have befallen Southgate had the Slovaks managed to head that last-minute throw-in clear, instead of letting Marc Guehi pass it to Jude Bellingham. Now Southgate is on the brink of history, the unwitting architect of a miracle machine.
His team has played more than 600 minutes of football in this tournament and has looked genuinely impressive for perhaps 30 of them in a row. That was in the first half against the Netherlands, when Phil Foden, Bukayo Saka and Kobbie Mainoo took control and showed what England can look like in the heat of the game – at least until Ronald Koeman went man-to-man in midfield and stopped them.
The rest of the time, their form has oscillated between boring and underachieving, in contrast to Spain, who have always been intelligent, lively and inventive. They have also been fortunate to have another kind draw. Southgate pointed out that England had a good draw because they won their group, which is fair, but they were still lucky with the way things played out. Spain also won their group and their reward was to face Germany and then France.
The bottom line is that whenever England has faced a moment of real crisis, someone has come along with a flash of brilliance to rescue it. England have more players capable of creating decisive moments than any other country, even Spain.
Southgate’s greatest achievement is that he has managed this highly talented group of players for many years without any significant outbreaks of conflict and chaos. That may seem like the bare minimum you might expect, but he has actually outdone many of his predecessors. Glenn Hoddle humiliated David Beckham at the 1998 World Cup. Sven-Goran Eriksson’s squads were divided by cliques within the clubs. Fabio Capello was hated by all the players. Southgate, who came into the job as a far less distinguished manager than any of them, has done far better than any of them.
If he has retained the players’ trust it is partly because he has shown that he trusts them. For example, with Harry Kane failing to live up to expectations and delivering a series of weak performances, many commentators have been arguing that England would surely be stronger with a dynamic leader like Ollie Watkins or Ivan Toney.
Someone like Alex Ferguson could leave Kane out of the final. For Southgate, that would be unthinkable. To do so would be a betrayal not just of Kane, but of his entire approach to human affairs. Loyalty is a fundamental principle for him. Remember that Harry Maguire and even Jordan Henderson would probably have started for England in this tournament if it weren’t for injuries.
In recent weeks, the general feeling among those who follow England closely is that Southgate will step down after the Euros. They say that compared to a few years ago, he seems a little worn down, a little less patient, less likely to overcome criticism and more willing to respond passive-aggressively to questions deemed unfair or provocative.
During this tournament he has complained about the personal criticism he has received and has repeatedly spoken of the importance of celebrating moments of happiness when they come, suggesting that most of the time he does not have much fun. The general impression is that he is fed up with his job and its annoyances and is willing to let someone else take care of it.
In recent days, things have changed. The looming prospect of winning England’s first title in 58 years has proved exhilarating. The FA are making it clear they would like him to stay and, if they win on Sunday, he surely will.
The core of the team – Rice, Bellingham, Foden, Saka, Mainoo – is young and should be even stronger for the next World Cup. Harry Kane, John Stones and Jordan Pickford will all be 32. And England’s academies continue to produce ever more outstanding young talents.
Winning the Euros would mean no one could call Southgate a loser any more – unless, perhaps, he abdicated as European champion, giving up the chance to win the World Cup and secure his status as one of the greatest figures in English football history.
First they have to beat Spain. Football logic suggests that Spain is the better team, but the laws of narrative point to an English victory, even in the fact that they have reached the final by beating a series of teams that all start with S: Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Switzerland. Still, to paraphrase Sean Connery, the father of Indiana Jones: “But in the Spanish language, Spain starts with E…”
