Let’s not go home to a nice reception ...let’s go home with the TROPHY!
Southgate not satisfied with reaching the last four — he wants the lot
RIGHT now, nothing tops the World Cup final in 1966. Not for scale of achievement and certainly not for public interest. With 32.3million tuning in that day, it remains the largest TV audience in UK history.
As Gareth Southgate reflected on a magnificent England victory in a city that was home to Russia’s space programme, he might also have been interested to know which broadcasting moment comes in at No 4 and remains higher on the list than any other sporting event.
With 28.6m glued to their screens, it was the Apollo 13 splashdown in April 1970, one place above the 1970 FA Cup final replay that took place only a few months before England’s manager was born. But Southgate does have a point when he suggests England’s progression to a World Cup final in Russia could top the lot.
‘Perhaps in the modern era it would be crazier,’ he said. ‘With social media, the global thing is so much bigger.’
One radio host responded to the 2-0 win over Sweden, and with it a place in the World Cup semi-finals for the first time in 28 years, by telling Southgate on Twitter: ‘England just exploded.’
And while it remains difficult for Southgate and his squad to fully appreciate that from their sleepy seaside training base in Repino, the challenge facing him now is how he prepares for such a momentous occasion when the mood is frenzied excitement.
He was asked late on Saturday how he rides the wave of hope and expectation without overwhelming his young side.
‘ We’ve managed that so far because the beauty of where we’re staying is that we are remote, in a place on our own,’ he said. ‘A lot of the guys, like me, have switched off to it.
‘It’s a shame because you should enjoy it and really feel it. But I turned my phone off for three hours before the game because, number one, I needed an hour’s sleep and, number two, I just felt, “Now it’s no more messages, it’s just focus, it’s about the team and us as a group”. I also had to change my email address.
‘We’re proud to be having an influence but we’re also going to be making sure our energies and focus are in the right place. All the guys are getting the memes and gifs and whatever else. That’s fine but, again, two days ago I found I was still watching stuff about Colombia and I thought, “Come on, we’ve got another game. We’ve got to move on”.
‘The players are focused. They recognise the opportunity they have. These opportunities might never come again.’
As a member of one of England’s two much- celebrated semi-final sides, Southgate understands that only too well. He understands, for all the praise his players deserve, that they also need to appreciate there are few things worse than losing a semi-final. ‘ It doesn’t mean a lot,’ he said of that Euro ’96 match against Germany. ‘But I don’t think I’ll need to use that.
‘They know what they want to do. They know they stand at a moment of history and they’re desperate to do as well as they can. They don’t need any extra motivation. It’s all there and we’ve just got to prepare them as well as we can for the game.’
History remains a source of inspiration. But it is to 1966, not Italia ’90 or the team he was part of under Terry Venables, that he refers. To England’s heroic winners rather than the gallant losers. It says a lot about Southgate. A semi-final, however proud the English public might now be, is not enough for this guy. He wants more.
Behind that modesty, decency and humility, it is clear he wants it all; certainly to beat Croatia in Moscow. ‘We’ve talked, touched briefly, certainly, on the team who won in 1966,’ he said. ‘How they’re still revered.
‘ It was at the beginning of working together with the lads and trying to sell them the vision of what’s possible, what we’re looking to achieve in the long term. We’ve had events when some of those guys have been in, when the road was named at St George’s after Sir Alf. I’ve met quite a few of those players and we know exactly how they’re held.
‘I said to the players before the quarter-final that we could go home after today and I’m sure we’d have got a good reception, and that would have been nice.
‘But I don’t think any of us would have been happy to go home at this point. The biggest thing was to overcome all the physical and emotional energy that they expended against Colombia, and deal with a different physical and mental challenge.
‘They’ve done brilliantly to play the game and generally control it, playing with real discipline. But we want to keep going. We are here for a week. We play two matches whatever we do now, but we want to be in the final.’
Southgate is an increasingly impressive figure and the respect he commands is far from exclusively English. It was noticeable, for instance, that Sweden captain Andreas Granqvist made a point of interrupting his post-match interview to wish Southgate all the best for the semi-final.
Southgate is enjoying the moment, suggesting this means more to him than anything he achieved as a player. ‘ You’re responsible for so much more and you know all of the work that has gone on,’ he said. ‘When you are a player, you are just focusing on yourself and your performance.
‘Also, I’ve looked at the history, even more so as the years have gone by. So it’s an incredibly proud moment and I feel privileged to be involved with a group who are so tight and have given everything over the last 18 months.’
Not to mention excited. In 1990 Southgate was a teenager rising through the Crystal Palace ranks and watching that semi-final at a ‘mate’s house’ in Crawley with a ‘curry and a few beers’. He taped the game so he could watch it again and study it.
Now, however, he is in charge, talking about how exactly England prepare for Luka Modric and his colleagues. Yesterday they stuck to their tradition of recovery and dinner with their families.
But the message from today will be simple: ‘Let’s push the boundaries, let’s create our own history.’
‘I’ve had to change my email address and turn my phone off. We have to ensure our energy is in the right place’