GREAT WEIGHT LIFTED AT LAST
Sterling and Kane help exact revenge for Euro 96 agonies
IT’S going to Rome, it’s going to Rome – football’s going to Rome!
This is anything but job done although, boy, does it feel like a huge weight has been lifted off the shoulders of English football.
As Gareth Southgate promised, this result had nothing to do with the ghosts of the past, it belongs completely to the Boys of ’21.
To Raheem Sterling, who had not scored a goal at a major tournament before this summer, and to skipper Harry Kane – finally.
So, next time we meet it is the Germans who can spend the week of the build-up agonising over Thomas Muller’s 81st-minute miss and get a sense of what it feels like.
While manager Southgate tried to make light of his personal agonies from 25 years ago by starring in a pizza commercial, there will be little consolation for the 31-year-old German should a certain yoghurt manufacturer look to sign him up.
Because forget the flattering scoreline, the match was decided – and Joachim Low’s tenure ended – by a bona fide Muller Moment.
Sterling gave the ball away on the halfway line and, for once, the unflappable Harry Maguire and John Stones dithered.
Muller was away, Jordan Pickford advanced, time stood still and the veteran German shot. The ball bounced and trickled and this time it went as close to the post as Gazza’s foot got to the ball all those years ago.
England had ridden their luck but other than that, they had done nothing wrong – although hindsight can be a wonderful thing.
Because more than a few questioned the timidity of Southgate’s decision to shrink back and match up Germany by mimicking their back-three system. But England seemed to want it just that little bit more and, as a result, the tactics worked.
Germany bossed it early on as Southgate’s less-experienced team took time to find their rhythm.
Kai Havertz – along with Toni Kroos, Germany’s best players – slid in Chelsea team-mate Timo Werner in the 32nd minute and Pickford produced an important save.
On the stroke of half-time Sterling breached the defence, the ball ran to Kane and just when you expected the net to bulge, Mats Hummels got in with his toe. Germany continued
to be the more dangerous in the second half, Pickford producing a more acrobatic stop to tip a 15-yard Havertz effort over the bar.
But this is 2021, remember. Fears of the past forgotten and, more importantly, the greatest chance ever with five substitutes to make an impact from the bench.
Effectively, it took only one.Yes, that one.
There was a huge roar when Jack Grealish’s face appeared on the giant screen in the 63rd minute and an even bigger one when he came on six minutes later.
Another six minutes and he was feeding possession to Luke Shaw, whose low cross was converted by Sterling from close range.
Wembley, even only half-full, went berserk. England were then wondering whether to play for time when Shaw found space again. He set up Grealish, below, and the playmaker’s cross was headed in unerringly by a delighted Kane. For all the questions the Tottenham star has faced at the Euros, this was one he knew the answer to and England had it all wrapped up.
Rome, then, awaits on Saturday and after that the semi-finals and final, hopefully, back at Wembley. Nothing on that journey should cause England any fear and the challenge now is to celebrate this win but then put it away in the locker. Because, slowly, this team are showing that they are capable of so much more than simply putting a few nightmares to bed.