Was England’s Cup run really a success?
As it turned out, football was never “coming home.” England is going home, after a wild, month-long ride in Russia, but soccer’s finest prize is not. Nor is a third-place finish, after Belgium racked up a convincing 2-0 victory in Saturday’s bronze-medal game in St. Petersburg.
For all the scenes of joy and national pride, all those renditions of the Three Lions tune and all the statistical quirks that pointed to it, England will depart this World Cup contemplating a simple reality.
To win this tournament, you need to have one of the best teams in the world. As in, one of the two or three very best, then get a little bit of luck go your way.
England was still around to contest the World Cup’s final week, and there is genuine merit in being one of the top four teams in soccer’s grandest event. It was beaten by two of them and the third, a rested and resourceful France, will probably be world champion by Sunday night.
It was one heck of a run, but a little perspective is needed. Once the final whistle sounded, England’s record in Russia read as follows.
Matches played – seven. Three wins, against Panama, Tunisia and Sweden. A draw against Colombia – with subsequent advancement via penalty kicks. And three defeats, twice to Belgium and in a semifinal to Croatia after leading with 22 minutes left.
The true power of what England achieved here is not in its win-loss record, but in the impact it had in reshaping the narrative around the national team. A young squad and an enterprising coach, Gareth Southgate, got a frustrated nation to love it again, an affection unchanged by the defeats on Wednesday and here.
It offers positive signs for the future, though such factors are not always reliable. England had a chance, and it wasn’t able to take it. It should get another one, but there are no guarantees.
What we do know if that it has bought itself some credit, and Southgate has engineered himself some leeway, with the way it both played and conducted itself away from the field.
Viewing figures for the semifinal among the English public were unnecessary. There was no one on the streets or the motorways or any of the shops. The country went into shutdown mode to crowd around television sets up and down England.
It is the nature of these things, but by this weekend, it has found other activities to get involved with. In central London, a mass protest got angry at the British visit of President Donald Trump and raised a blimp of him wearing a diaper. There was a spot of people-watching too, with the television audience transfixed by watching Meghan Markle watch absurdly long tennis matches at Wimbledon. Football fever hasn’t been rubbed out, but the temperature of it has dropped. Losing a couple of games will do that.
Belgium finished third but they might have been the second-best team in this tournament. Thomas Meunier put them ahead early and Belgium stretched England’s defensive resources late, in a different but similarly effective way as Croatia had. Dreis Mertens nearly scored one of the great World Cup goals of all-time with 12 minutes left before being stopped by Jordan Pickford, but Eden Hazard added the second goal soon after and secured bronze for his team.
And so England departs, headed home for what will surely be a hero’s welcome. It had been 28 years since an England team came this close to winning the World Cup, and a grateful public will show its appreciation.
This dramatic run may or may not have brought the team closer to achieving a first major title since 1966, only time will tell on that.