SOUTHGATE HAS ONE FINAL TARGET IN HIS SIGHTS
Southgate relishes chance to be a hero by crushing Italy
GARETH Southgate’s England team now stand 90 minutes from being crowned champions of Europe for the first time. Beat a streetwise Italy team at Wembley on Sunday night — harder than it sounds — and their status as the long-suffering chronic underachievers of world football will finally come to an end.
Wednesday night’s progress towards a first major final in 55 years sparked scenes of wild celebration on the streets of Britain’s capital. Wembley Way rocked to the lyrics of Neil Diamond and Atomic Kitten. Jubilant fans danced on the roofs of red double decker buses. The flag of St George draped from the window of every car with a working horn.
Whether Raheem Sterling dived to win a penalty in the semi-final is neither here nor there now. Gripes over the relentless jingoism of ITV commentator Sam Matterface are equally pointless.
England are in the final and, short of fleeing London on the first train, putting a brick through the TV or bolting up the doors and shutters, fans from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland now face a blunt choice. Switch off or deal with it.
The Anyone But England lobby can take heart. Despite the good fortune experienced in an extra-time test of nerve against Denmark suggesting their name is already on the trophy, however, a coronation as tournament winners remains a matter of if rather than when. As Southgate is quick to tell anyone who’ll listen, they’ve one more Everest to climb.
Under Roberto Mancini, Italy are unbeaten in 33 internationals. Swashbuckling and brilliant, hardened and cynical, the Azzurri know how to win big, important games. As the brilliant Giorgio Chiellini showed when he needled stand-in Spanish captain Jordi Alba before Tuesday’s penalty shoot-out, they know how to psyche out opponents.
Despite the exertions of extratime and penalties in a gruelling semi-final win over Spain, Italy enter Sunday’s final with an additional 24 hours of rest. Strip away the emotion of what Southgate’s team have achieved and you reach an unavoidable conclusion. Chiellini and Co will be a desperately tough nut to crack.
‘It is definitely a bit of a disadvantage,’ admits the England boss. ‘But we have to find the best way of dealing with that.
‘In terms of Italy, I think what Roberto (Mancini) has done and the way they’ve played the last couple of years, the record speaks for itself in terms of the wins, the small number of goals conceded. The style of play has been exceptional.
‘We have an immense challenge against a top opponent. I was hearing Italy have been to 12 semi-finals, ten finals, their record is phenomenal. So we’ve got a huge task ahead of us but one that we’ll take on with relish.’
The one word you would associate with Italy is streetwise. They turn football’s dark arts into an art form. They make Dick Dastardly look like a blundering amateur.
In the last-16 win over Belgium, Mancini’s team were outstanding for 75 minutes. In the last 15 minutes, they took gamesmanship to a new level, the play-acting of striker Ciro Immobile drawing widespread derision.
England are hardly shrinking innocents themselves. The contact with Sterling for the spotkick which sunk an outstanding Denmark team was minimal, some might say non-existent.
The capacity of captain Harry Kane to succumb to a puff of wind and win free-kicks in key areas, meanwhile, is key to so much of the danger they pose from headers and set-pieces.
After decades of bitter failure at the critical stage of tournaments, however, England and their fans couldn’t care less how they go about beating Italy on Sunday. They are so close now and all that matters is that they do.
‘I can’t really tell you how it feels to be a finalist,’ ponders Southgate, a survivor of more than one crippling semi-final defeat. ‘I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet.
‘I’m still mulling through the game in my head and everything that happened but, in terms of the team, I guess to get to a semi-final in Russia was probably ahead of where we expected to be.
To get to a final now? Hard to say. But we are there and we now have a wonderful opportunity.’
When some fans in Scotland and Wales support Anyone But England, it’s nothing personal. Southgate himself comes over as the kind of man everyone would take as a neighbour.
Respectful of opponents’ mind games, rabble rousing has never been his thing and that’s just one of the reasons why, whatever happens on Sunday, a visit to Buckingham Palace looks certain.
Defeat to Italy won’t stop network broadcasters banging on about Kane’s penalty in 30 years’ time and, while that’s a source of intense irritation to viewers in the other home nations, the legendary status of England’s management and players already looks assured.
‘Well, that would be for other people to decide depending on the outcome of Sunday,’ says Southgate of that prospect.
‘At the moment, this group of players and staff have been fantastic to lead, have crossed every challenge that’s been put their way. So we’ll prepare properly for Sunday, we’ll get the players recovered in the best possible way and we’ll be ready to go.
‘I guess for me it hasn’t really totally registered because I’m not reading those front pages and I’m not tuning into those bulletins. But I’m noticing the journey to the stadium, the tooting of the horns, the flags on the cars, so I’m starting to get a feel of exactly what’s going on. And I suppose in the back of my mind I know what’s going on but I’ve tried to put it to one side, really, and keep focused on what we’re doing.
‘But to be able to hear Wembley like it was and to know how that will have been around the country is, yes, an honour.
‘I can’t be prouder to have the opportunity to lead my country, so to bring happiness at this time when it’s been so difficult for this period is a very special feeling.’
The coronavirus pandemic is hardly unique to the southern half of the British Isles. Should England beat Italy to become champions of Europe on Sunday, however, the impact on public spirits south of the border would be as powerful and potent as the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine.