JOURNEY TO REDEMPTION
Unlikely lads are set to take the final step towards gaining the respect they deserve
THE history boys stood in the middle of the Luzhniki Stadium and looked around. Gareth Southgate, and his faithful lieutenant, Jordan Henderson, unlikely lads on the verge of a unique place in English hearts.
What a journey it has been. The manager no one wanted and the player whose very presence came to represent English football’s failings.
How many World Cup contenders would find room for Henderson in midfield, it was asked? How many great nations would be managed by Southgate?
Yet here they are, these mighty overachievers. Southgate (below) the most innovative England manager in 20 years, Henderson, whose performances this season have reshaped perceptions of his worth to club and country.
A Champions League finalist with Liverpool in May, he could be a World Cup finalist in July.
One game. That is all that stands between them and England’s first final on foreign soil. Ninety minutes, maybe a little extra, against Croatia to secure a return to the Luzhniki on Sunday.
This truly is one of the great underdog stories. Nobody, but nobody, placed England in Russia this late in the day. The last eight was the optimistic call, the last 16 and a spirited departure would be acceptable. There were plenty who were not even predicting that.
Yet here they are. A win away in what is fast becoming one of football’s great redemption tales.
‘Football’s coming home,’ England’s fans sang in Samara, and Southgate conducted them, happily.
He used to hurry from the premises when he heard that song. It made him sad. The memory of 1996, and the shoot-out penalty he missed was still raw, even two decades later.
We are only beginning to appreciate that pain now. Southgate has done a fine job of masking the hurt he has carried for so long.
Asked what it meant to him to hear ‘Football’s coming home’ ringing out again — and no doubt expecting an upbeat answer — Southgate’s honesty was startling.
‘Frankly, I couldn’t listen to it for 20 years,’ he said. ‘It has a slightly different feel for me.’
Later, he expanded. ‘I would just walk out of the room if it came on,’ he said. ‘It is an anthem and has followed the team for a long time but it’s been involved in some very difficult moments for me as well.
‘The 1996 tournament ended in disappointment and I suppose it is nice to be able to put a different frame around it now. I still look back on it as an incredible life experience and feel fortunate to have been involved, but I needed a bit of time to get over what happened.
‘Put it like this: I’ll never choose to stick it on, it will never be on the playlist. But I can listen to it now.’
It’s fair to say, then, that Southgate will not be channelling the ghosts of semi-finals past on the eve of this match. His players would have little to learn from the ancient history of 1990 — a slow, rather ponderous game, if revisited with eyes used to the athletic extremes of the modern game — or even from 1996.
Southgate may have taken a lot from the regime of Terry Venables but, as he pointed out yesterday, that was a home European Championships and England never left Wembley.
This tournament has seen England based on the Gulf of Finland and branching out to Russia’s deep south with its extremities of heat and thriving, vibrant and persistent insect population. ‘I think we feel the past is of no bearing to this team,’ Southgate said, ‘and we have been consistent about that from the off. It was my problem, being part of that history. ‘Today’s players get the blame for what my generation and generations that followed did. ‘But these guys had a chance to start from scratch and create their own history, that’s what we’re focused on.
‘Most of them weren’t born when a lot of the stories we talk about happened, so why as a coach would I try and put that at their door?
‘They should be judged on their team and I think, to be fair, people have done that.
‘They’ve seen we’ve got good lads who are incredibly proud to play, who are playing in a slightly different style to the one we’ve seen, playing with confidence on a big stage. And they’ve seen we’ve got trust in them doing that.’
Nor will the England manager be burdening his players with lengthy addresses on the talents of Luka Modric and Ivan Rakitic.
The pair represent arguably the finest midfield partnership of this World Cup, and Modric may prove its stellar talent.
Certainly, England have no one like him, no one who can dictate the play quite the same way and if Croatia prevail he is likely to be the inspiration.
Given that James Rodriguez was injured when England played Colombia, and Belgium fielded a second team in the final group game, Southgate’s players have faced no one of his quality yet in the tournament.
England will prepare for this challenge obviously but not, Southgate insisted, to the point of obsession. Little worth in getting as far as this and playing scared.
‘In November, we faced Brazil and Neymar was in the side,’ Southgate added, ‘so we will highlight certain players and the positions they’re likely to take, as we did that night.
‘We look at some of their attributes that need additional focus. Equally, though, we always look at how we can hurt them, what are the areas we can exploit in what we do?
‘Look, I’ve played in a lot of teams where — bloody hell, we played Nuneaton Borough in the cup with Middlesbrough once and I thought their centre-forward was Eusebio because we’d built him up that much in the pre-match briefing.
‘You can overdo information for players. The lads know Croatia’s team, but also that we’ve got good defensive organisation. That has to be spot on the further you go in the tournament, you have to be more compact and play with more awareness.
‘They’ll be the best team we’ve played in terms of what they’re capable of doing with the ball, and what individuals are capable of, definitely.
‘Croatia have players that can produce moments you’ve got to be aware of, but we don’t have to shift from what we’ve been and what we’ve been doing because we can cover those players from our system.’
Southgate looked vaguely perturbed at the thought of returning to a nation besotted.
‘Let me tell you, whether we win or lose the game, my life will not change,’ Southgate insisted.
‘I will go home, take the dogs for a run and disappear to Yorkshire.
‘I have been in sport long enough to know what my life is day to day. I will get more attention and it won’t be easy to go out for meals in certain places but it won’t change my view of the world or the things I do.’