Kids are all right at last with new-found pace and freedom

THE group of England players were driven the short distance from their hotel to the media centre on the shores of the Gulf of Finland. The minibus took them past gaggles of happy schoolchildren, waddling towards the beaches on day trips out of the city, an hour away to the south. They drove past hikers and cyclists and the Stroganoff restaurant, which is where it’s at in the sleepy resort of Repino.

In the distance, they could see the Gazprom obelisk-shaped skyscraper, a monument to the new Russia, which towers over the St Petersburg Stadium and dominates the northern outskirts of the city that Peter the Great built. But Repino feels an awfully long way away from the pressure and the mad adrenaline surges of a World Cup, a tournament which will mark the biggest few weeks of their footballing lives.

When they arrived at the hotel by the sea, they walked up a flight of marble stairs. Before they started their interviews, Gary Cahill strode over to an area where a small group of journalists were waiting and had a game of darts with one of them. The journalist threw his three arrows first and scored 26. Cahill, grinning broadly, hit the outer bull with his first throw. Game over.

It wasn’t a spontaneous contest but it was deliberately symbolic. During England’s ill-fated Euro 2016 campaign, Joe Hart’s refusal to divulge any details about the darts competition the players were having at their base in France seemed to sum up the paranoia and insularity that gripped Roy Hodgson’s squad.

So the darts match in Repino was intended as a sign that things have moved on. On and off the pitch, Gareth Southgate is trying to create distance between the old failures at World Cups, and the youth and optimism that flows through this squad. More than at any time since 1998, this feels like a fresh start for the England team.

There is no sign of the old divisions that used to rend England squads asunder, no evidence of the tensions that once existed between, say, Manchester United and Liverpool players, or United and Chelsea players. This squad has the feel of a group of friends who have grown up together. They have played in England junior squads together. They like each other. That supersedes club rivalries. For now, anyway.

Southgate’s squad is the second youngest in Russia and the most inexperienced in terms of caps. Only four have played in a World Cup. Only four to bear the scars. England needed to wipe the slate clean more than any other side here, with the possible exception of a Brazil team desperate to atone for their 7-1 defeat by Germany, and Southgate has set about that task with brio. base in Zelenogorsk, a few miles north of Repino, Jesse Lingard spoke at the media centre about the talent and the spirit among the 23 players Southgate has brought to Russia and the same words kept coming up.

Freedom. Enjoyment. Youth. Pace. Lingard has a quiet, gentle voice when he speaks but those words kept jumping out as he talked to journalists. That is the environment Southgate is building. Freedom, enjoyment, youth and pace are the shibboleths around which he is creating an identity for this England squad for Russia 2018 and beyond. There is real optimism in the squad and it is infectious.

The question that bitter experience has taught us, of course, is how much of that optimism survives a dull 0-0 draw with Tunisia in Volgograd tomorrow and the reaction that follows? Will Cahill still be playing darts in the media centre if we lose to Panama next weekend? Maybe not, but Southgate is trying to change the culture around the England team because he sees it as a building block in improving performance.

Manager and players will be judged here on what they do, not what they say, and when all the talking stops and all the symbolism fades and the match begins in the Volgograd Arena, there are reasons for cautious optimism about our prospects in the weeks that lie ahead.

Belgium, our leading opponents in Group G, are a fine side and are favourites to progress, and although we must not underestimate Panama and Tunisia, we must be confident of beating them and advancing, too.

This is not a great England side. Southgate’s players are too young and too inexperienced for us to imagine that they might become serious challengers for the trophy. But this England team are stacked with potential. Raheem Sterling is a brilliant, quicksilver forward who starts for one of the best club sides in the world. Harry Kane is a striker coveted by Europe’s elite.

This is a more subtle, nuanced England, a young England with clever technical players who can probe for weaknesses in opposition defences and find them. Dele Alli, Lingard and Marcus Rashford could become superstars in years to come. John Stones is a defender of rare grace and poise.

Stones’s selection and the prominence of Jordan Pickford hint at the style evolution that Southgate has insisted upon. Like Stones, Pickford is so comfortable with the ball at his feet that he can play out of tight spaces. He does not automatically hoof the ball into Row Z at the first sign of danger. Moves start with the goalkeeper now. Possession, at last, is not something to be given away carelessly. It is to be cherished.

The heat of Volgograd tomorrow, against North African opponents, will be a useful early test of whether Southgate’s players have the technical ability and the psychological strength to play a possession game.

These and many other trials lie ahead for this young England team but if their cornerstones remain then much is possible. Freedom. Enjoyment. Youth. Pace. It is time to put their education to the test.