This is when we find out . . . the pressure will now
ONE thing Gareth Southgate has demonstrated since taking over with England is the courage to always make his own decisions.
In choosing to field a weaker team against Belgium, he made a huge one and we are about to see if this is going to gloriously pay dividends or backfire spectacularly.
His selection for that game may yet prove to be a masterstroke but it’s not the approach I would have taken.
On Twitter, I wrote before the game: ‘World Cups are all about momentum AND winning your next game. England must prepare and approach this game v Belgium as if it was a knockout match — top the group and then and only then think AND talk about your next opponent. This is such an important game to keep momentum going.’
Instead, the selection sent out the wrong message to opposition nations regardless of what side of the draw England ended up on. Most importantly it sent out the wrong message to the players. Perhaps the bubble didn’t completely burst but Southgate and some of the players sounded a little deflated afterwards.
Big tournaments are all about making big statements and keeping other teams in a state of some fear and trepidation and I’m afraid the former coach and patriot in me resurfaced on Thursday night and I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t understand the rationale of what I had just watched.
For Southgate it must have been a curious and distracting situation to find himself in. I have no doubt that secretly he would have preferred to face Belgium in the first or second game and go full gas at each other, leaving one of the other matches to make a few changes and rest a couple of players.
Instead, Thursday night was the first chance to really test this England team and see how good they are before the highly pressurised knockout stages, regardless of whether Belgium rested key players. There was so much to be gained but that opportunity was squandered.
The thing I am really struggling with, though, is a much bigger point. England have hardly covered themselves in glory in tournaments over the last two decades yet they were wasting time and energy and getting distracted thinking about possible quarter-finals and semi-finals.
Don’t even go there, just win the next match and the next after that. And who on earth ever thought that somehow Colombia would be the easy route, one of the best attacking teams in world football and a side who reached the Olympic quarter- finals? Nobody qualifying for the World Cup last 16 gets lucky.
The one team who will be relishing all this is Colombia — what greater motivation than an England team believing playing them is an easier way to glory!
I would love to be in charge of the Colombia team this week, reminding my players how England don’t respect them. The England players will know this too. Hold on to your hats on Tuesday evening because if England think Sweden or Switzerland is an easier quarter-final, you can bet Colombia do as well.
Yet who is to say that Southgate might just have called it right? Coaches and teams are judged solely on end outcomes and results and this story is nowhere near over yet.
I can see the upsides. Most of his Gun XI are fresh and well rested since the Panama game, the extra day before the round of 16 may be useful for preparing for what Colombia have to offer and there is less travelling involved.
But I don’t believe fitness is an issue really. In fact I’m impressed with the conditioning of this squad. There is no need to use fitness as a reason for resting players — this is the World Cup and your top players should be wanting and able to play every minute. There is no advantage in just giving squad players game time.
I have been amazed how former players used unity in the squad as a reason for Southgate’s selection — well, if this is what creates unity, we have zero chance — unity is simply everyone doing everything that is required of them to win the next match even if that is just carrying the water bottle.
Tournament sport really comes alive when you reach the knockout stages and what always happens when you get to sudden death is the underdogs raise their game and the so- called weaker sides really step up, it’s their World Cup final and, make no mistake, this is Colombia’s World Cup final.
Back at the 2003 Rugby World Cup our first knockout game, against Wales, was a very rude awakening.
After winning our crucial pool game against South Africa in the second of four group matches we had enjoyed a pretty comfortable preparation for the business end of the tournament.
We were playing Wales, a team we had beaten 26-9 in Cardiff in the Six Nations and then buried with our second team in a warm-up game before we travelled to Australia. Which counted for absolutely nothing as Wales tore into us in Brisbane. It was their World Cup final and, trailing 10-3 early in the second half, we really had to find another gear.
Jason Robinson produced something very special to create a try for Will Greenwood and Jonny Wilkinson started to bang over penalties as Wales felt the pressure and coughed up errors.
We pulled through but it was a shock to the system, that’s what happens when you enter the knockout stages. Everybody starts equal, previous results count for nothing. Southgate is articulate and honest and I believe there is still plenty of cause for optimism as long as he explained his decisions over the Belgium game to the players properly. If they ‘ bought in’ to the decision and there is no lingering resentment about it then a great World Cup is still on for England.
Southgate and England must trust in the work they have put in and have the confidence that they will bring their A-game to the Colombia match, but any team who top their group in a World Cup are not going to roll over, especially if the opposition think they are favourites.
There has been much to admire about how Southgate has gone about his job. As a former England player he is very experienced but he is not set in his ways and is open to innovation.
He’s not a tunnel- visioned ‘football guy’ who believes something always has to be done in a set way. He keeps his eyes and ears open. I am enjoying England’s set- pieces and have been impressed by the emphasis Southgate is putting on this.
He’s taken himself off to the NBA to see how the great basketball players and teams make room for themselves on a small, crowded court, how decoy runners can draw defenders away and open up space.
The NBA stars drill those moves night and day. Southgate knows the value of set-plays and that is the core of his approach, it’s what England did so well in the first two games.
Basketball is almost a series of set-plays. Every time the opposition score you restart with the ball at the back of the court, you restart from the side of the court
when the ball goes out or when a foul is called. You have endless opportunities to control the game.
Rugby is the same and Southgate has been a visitor to Pennyhill Park to see England train and to talk with Eddie Jones. Scrums, line-outs, restarts, tapped penalties, penalties to touch. Rugby can be free-flowing but at a base level it is also very structured.
All this is good and no doubt great fun. I had a year in professional football and I am a fully qualified football coach and loved every minute.
It is clear to me that the reason football is the greatest game in the world is its simplicity — that is why fans all over the world love it and can unite at World Cups.
So coaching at a World Cup is to make sure you get yourselves super- organised but the most important skill is getting your selections right and managing your team really well. Hopefully the key lesson Southgate has learned is how to simplify the basics.
The dynamic is different now we are down to the last 12 nations remaining after yesterday’s last-16 games. He will need the team’s big personalities to step up.
Southgate has done a great job of deflecting the pressure a little over the last six months but now it comes on in torrents.
This is the World Cup knockout stages and, despite Belgium, I haven’t been so excited about an England manager and his group of players for a long time.
They have built a genuine connection with the country and the opportunity of a lifetime is still there. But there is no hiding place, this is when champion teams find a way of winning. I can’t wait.