National side have returned to top billing with adoring public
Tonight’s semi-final will confirm that country not club is back at the pinnacle of our priorities
From the questions about waistcoats, tea-drinking and plastic chickens thrown at Gareth Southgate, you would never guess international football is the “pinnacle”, but England have reclaimed top billing for the masses back home – and for this generation of players.
Football, a global game, is not “coming home”. But the England team have already returned, to every home and heart in the land that sent this squad to Russia. The truism that everyone owns the national team has not seemed so appealing since Euro ’96, when English nationalism wore a benign face and Terry Venables’s team played with verve.
In the questions to Southgate, there is a still an underdog, knockabout quality, as if England are on some light entertainment caper, designed for breakfast TV. The stakes are a lot higher than that. The communion of English folk willing the national team past Croatia and on to Sunday’s final are also creating pressure for a re-ordering of priorities.
By winter, we will all be kneedeep in Manchester City v Liverpool again. By spring, we will all be Champions League obsessed. Yet this renewed affection for England, for tournament football, is not going just to wither on the vine, unless, perhaps, Croatia win 6-0 and England’s camp in the woods turns out to have been a den of iniquity after all.
Southgate has a clever method for dealing with frivolities such as “Waistcoat Wednesday” – harmless enough from the supporters’ end, but not something he should be bothered with on the eve of a World Cup semi-final.
England’s manager starts with a light-hearted response, then returns to his messages, one of which is – this is serious, a corner has been turned, a better way has been found.
Encouraged by the carrot of winning games, and waves of love from home, the players have experienced a new range of pleasures. The club is a collective too, but small and tribal. Spurs and Manchester City are surrounded by enemies.
These young England players have seen the camera pull back to reveal the wide-angle of national togetherness, with no hostility and everyone on the wagon. Imagine passing from a world where the fans of 19 clubs hound you (along with some of your own) to a place where praise and gratitude attend your every step.
No sportsman or woman could resist this national embrace, or return to club life not feeling another world had opened up: a second professional family, if you like. Not so long ago, on international duty, demoralised England players pined for their clubs. Now some may even yearn to be away with England, with their “brothers”, as Harry Kane referred to them.
This idyllic picture could change. But the dividend from England’s deep run in Russia is already secure for the next two tournaments. A semi-final appearance (at a minimum) is a reference point for 2020 and 2022: proof that this formula works.
When not fending off questions about toy chickens being thrown around at training, Southgate stuck with his manifesto. “I’ve been involved in all the plans really through the age groups. To have seen our younger teams have success is hugely rewarding,” he told reporters gathered from around the world.
“We know our academies are producing technically good players at all levels. We made a lot of changes with the national teams, but lots of changes that helped us to be successful. We believe we have to continue doing that – constantly evolve and improve.
“The experiences of the last few weeks, the milestones they’ve hit, are a great reference point moving forward. The more big games we’re involved in, the more pressure situations they emerge from successful, the more we will build.
“We have players in this squad who will take us forward, and others coming through the age groups with belief they can win, but also expectations that we should be in quarter-finals and finals more regularly.
“That work is great, but you have to achieve at senior level in the end for that to feel fulfilled.”
Sitting alongside was Jordan Henderson, who must have thought his year had peaked when he played in a Champions League final against Real Madrid, but found another, higher plane – and not the paper kind Southgate remembers falling on the Wembley pitch, as England fans succumbed to ennui. Now, the hardcore who endured all those grinding friendlies and long qualification trips are at the payout window.
The team comes to you from Russia with love, and even the question of how good they are is rendered irrelevant by the larger issue of how far they will go in this five-week movie. No longer are many of Southgate’s players youngsters of “promise”, fighting their way into starting XIS.
Many have grown in a month into international thoroughbreds. Jordan Pickford, John Stones, Jesse Lingard, Harry Maguire and Kieran Trippier are among those who have added a new dimension to their careers, beyond London, Leicester, Manchester or even Europe. Their stories (Southgate’s favourite theme) are global sellers.
Club versus country has been replaced by club and country. The emotional mismatch of powerhouse Premier League outfits and a stumbling national team has given way to a transcending togetherness.
For England’s players and the English public to be as one like this shows, as Southgate said in Moscow, that “sport can unite, football can unite”. Not often true for England – but true in Russia.