Southgate: We can either sink back or build on our success
Manager says hunger is there for more progress England shirt no longer about ‘misery and regret’
Gareth Southgate has challenged England to build on their brilliant World Cup campaign in the way Germany did in 2010 rather than let it become “a moment of rare hope”.
The England manager also declared that reaching the semifinals in Russia, and the extremely positive manner in which his team behaved on and off the pitch, showed that wearing the Three Lions shirt no longer involves “misery, regret, recrimination” as it has done for previous generations.
Germany reached the last four of the World Cup in South Africa eight years ago with a young team, beating England in the last 16, and then won the tournament in Brazil in 2014 with most of the same squad.
Southgate took one of the youngest selections to Russia, and certainly the most inexperienced in terms of caps, and despite losing the semi-final against Croatia, they will depart with pride restored and a newfound belief, even though the dressing room was “desolate” after the 2-1 extra-time defeat in Moscow.
“Of course we have one of two paths to go,” Southgate said. “This is either a moment of rare hope and we sink back or we build in the way that Germany did in 2010. We want to be in semi-finals, finals and we’ve shown to ourselves that can happen. The team and individuals will be better in a couple of years’ time. Some of these big matches, you just have to go through them and live them to know how to react in the right moments in the right way.”
It was only the third time since winning the World Cup in 1966 that England have reached the semifinals of a major tournament and, significantly, unlike on the previous two occasions, the manager will remain to build on his work. Following the 1990 World Cup, Sir Bobby Robson left and the same happened at Euro 96 when the semi-final defeat by Germany was Terry Venables’s last game.
Southgate is contracted to 2020 but has a two-year extension clause that would take him up to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. To trigger it, all Southgate has to do is qualify for the next European Championship which, given its expanded format, should be relatively straightforward.
It means that the 47-year-old can expect to be England manager for at least the next four years if he wants. It would be no surprise if the Football Association suggested increasing his £1.8million salary.
Southgate is committed to continuing the overhaul of the England squad. Prior to the World Cup, he name-checked several young players. They included Fulham’s Ryan Sessegnon, Borussia Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho, Manchester City’s Phil Foden and Chelsea’s Mason Mount as well as Watford’s Nathaniel Chalobah.
Southgate certainly believes the World Cup campaign has created a foundation. “We have to build,” he said. “We have good young players coming through. We’ve had success at youth level. What we’ve done over the last few weeks has shown people what is possible, and we’ve got to use it as a springboard to consistently reach the latter stages of tournaments.
“The desire and hunger of the players is there for them to do it. It’s great that they may have had a feeling that playing for England is always misery, regret, recrimination and they have seen that it can be fun, it can be enjoyable. The whole experience can be enjoyable for everybody, really.
“They have had a view of what’s possible and that was my experience in my first tournaments with England. [After that] It was difficult to watch the guys avoiding mistakes for a long period. For the majority of this tournament we have tried to be as positive as we can be and be brave.
“Mistakes were always going to happen but I think to be a top team you have got to play in that style.”
There are lessons to be learnt. “We have to be realistic,” Southgate said. “All the games we’ve had against the bigger teams we haven’t managed to win yet.
“But we have won the games that maybe in the past we were expected to win and didn’t. Now we have got to keep improving. We have managed to get a lot from these players and play in a way that highlighted some of our strengths and hid some of our weaknesses.”
England now face a third-place play-off in St Petersburg against Belgium (to whom they lost in the group stage) tomorrow afternoon and although changes will be made – Kieran Trippier, Jordan Henderson and Ashley Young are likely to be ruled out injured – Southgate said the fixture still mattered.
“It’s the chance to have our second-best finish [at a tournament] and the chance for the players to get a medal,” he said. “There’s that and there’s the pride in playing for your country again. So we’ll try and get the team best able to do the job.”