England can’t mess it up like they did after 2006... we’ re now moving forward as a mature football nation
JUST a reminder of what was going on in football the year England last won a knockout game at a major tournament.
Wembley was still a building site (right, top), so we had the pleasure of upgrading to Cardiff for cup finals.
Glenn Hoddle (right, middle) resigned as Wolves boss, giving him the chance to downgrade the quality of TV punditry.
And Middlesbrough reached the heady heights of the UEFA Cup Final, ensuring Steve McClaren (right, bottom) got his teeth whitened in anticipation of all the smiling he’d be doing as England manager.
That was 2006 – or roughly half a football-watching lifetime ago to a 32-year-old.
And England lost the next game, as they had done the previous time they reached the quarterfinals. So, as excited as the nation is getting over Gareth Southgate’s team and the supposedly heavensent route to the final, perspective is still very much needed. Even if they have now beaten the penalty hoodoo.
It’s beyond foolish to look at the potential fixtures and convince yourself they are formalities.
For starters, Sweden are no pushovers.
In their qualifying group, they beat France and finished above Holland before defeating Italy in the play-offs to reach Russia, where they’ve hammered Mexico 3-0 and seen off the world’s sixth-seeded side, Switzerland. But were England to get past Sweden, they would reach a World Cup semi-final for the first time since 1990, when fans stood on terraces, English clubs were banned from Europe and the Premier League was not even a wet dream shared by Rupert Murdoch, Greg Dyke and the owners of the top four clubs. That would be some achievement for the youngest squad left in the World Cup, who few believed would make it past the quarter-finals. Even the deepest pessimist would admit things are looking up. But let’s not forget how, after 1990, the fortunes of English club football soared, but the national side’s flatlined, then slumped. Bobby Robson was allowed to step down as coach, as was the next, and last manager, to take them to a tournament semi-finals, Terry Venables. The rest is misery. That cannot, and surely will not, happen to Southgate, even if England lose on Saturday and his head is turned into a root vegetable under the headline Swedes 2, Turnips 1 – The Sequel. Because the foundations are in place for England to finally progress like a mature footballing nation. In Russia, the intelligence and honesty of Southgate has shone through, as has the players’ humility. For once, the capabilities of the national side are in sync with the nation’s expectations. Optimism based around a young, talented group devoid of ego and bluster, balanced with the acceptance that only Harry Kane is in with a shout of making a squad of the world’s best players.
Whatever happens, we know England are in a good place.
We knew that anyway after last year’s World Cup triumphs for the Under-20s and Under-17s and the Euros win for the Under-19s. It’s impossible to fluke being the best at three age groups.
To then see the seniors exhibit, as they did against Colombia, the mental strength not to succumb to the dark arts, to fight back from an injury-time equaliser and to go where no group of Englishmen have previously gone in a World Cup, by winning a tense penalty shoot-out, means that they are getting things right. That the work going on at St George’s Park is bearing fruit. And Greg Dyke’s much-mocked claim that England can win the World Cup in 2022 now doesn’t seem so risible.
Indeed, the fact that the bookies have them joint-second favourites to lift it in 10 days’ time puts them way ahead of schedule.