Three Lions is mistaken for the arrogance of old

For all Southgate’s good work, rest of the world still considers this a nation of big heads

From an outsider’s perspective, the song is a reminder that pride comes before a fall

Of all the arrows thrown at England by the conquering Croatians, it was Luka Modric’s intimation of arrogance, surely the country’s most stubborn sporting stereotype, that cut the deepest. This normally diplomatic midfielder sliced through any post-match goodwill by accusing English journalists of a “huge mistake” in underestimating his team. “All these words from them we were reading,” he said. “We were saying, ‘OK, today we will see who will be tired.”

At a purely factual level, Modric was on shaky ground. As acts of hubris go, the suggestion that Croatia might have been a touch jaded after two extra-time slugfests against Denmark and Russia was tame. And yet in that febrile realm where football and cultural profiling collide, perception can be more significant than reality. Just ask Goran Ivanisevic, the 2001 Wimbledon champion and a proud son of Split, who pre-emptively called out English conceitedness by saying: “You are the best. You are the most beautiful. For sure you are coming home, but I hope not with the trophy.”

Part of the problem is that ubiquitous song. Since 1996, Three Lions has had more revivals than

Oklahoma!, but never has it been more insistently on a loop than during the past five weeks. To English ears, it is the ultimate nostalgic ode to heroic failure. But from an outsider’s perspective, it has become, in further evidence that English sarcasm travels about as well as warm real ale, a reminder that pride comes before a fall. When Cuneyt Cakir blew his whistle on Wednesday night’s doomed semi-final, a Dutch journalist stood up in the Wimbledon media bar and shouted: “It’s not coming home!” You can imagine how well that went down.

So, is Modric right? Are the English blind to grating assertions of their own imagined superiority? Yes, if you ask Roy Keane, who argued that England were too busy planning for the final against France, and for lavish homecoming parades, to pay due heed to the dangers posed by Croatia.

Although quite why the nation should take advice from a man whose signal contribution to international football was to abandon his Ireland team-mates on a Pacific island in 2002, because he happened not to like the manager, is anybody’s guess.

The immediate post-mortem on such a crushing loss is never pretty, but there is something about Modric’s intervention that stirs particular sadness. For if there is a lasting pride to be drawn from Gareth Southgate’s transformation of the England team, it is that he has not just changed the mood but shifted the paradigm, throwing off the old narrative of mercenary managers and over-indulged players to restore humility and exuberance. But Modric’s barb about English presumptuousness implies that all this work has been for nought, that the image abroad of a toxic sense of entitlement is as entrenched as it ever was.

The truth is Modric is living in the past. The attitudes commonly associated with England have changed, and at Russia 2018, the change has been starker and more rapid than any observers could have dared predict. Even at Euro 2016, the paranoia around England’s set-up was such that at one point, Joe Hart would not even answer questions about gamesroom darts. Fast-forward two years, from Chantilly to Repino, and the players are happily staging darts sessions with reporters. Amid the agony of defeat, the statements by Eric Dier and Kyle Walker about restoring national unity attested to a powerful reconnection.

So if the England team is conspicuously lacking in arrogance, what about the English press, the main subject of Modric’s ire? Again, the evidence does not support the claim. While The Sun’s “Go-kane!” headline for the Colombia game attracted much online opprobrium, it was mild in the context of previous tabloid jingoism. Euro ’96 was undoubtedly the nadir: think of “Achtung, Surrender!” By contrast, the build-up to this week’s confrontation with Croatia was devoid of any crass caricaturing. If the worst slight that Modric can identify is one about tiredness, then that is proof of progress. But the fact that he, and others, still found such inspiration in the mere idea of English haughtiness shows how far there still is to go. While Southgate can turn results around in the space of a single tournament, he will find that certain preconceptions die hard.