GARETH BRINGS A DASH OF HOPE

Impressive Southgate sets perfect tone for his young Lions

GARETH SOUTHGATE stood on a landing at the back of the main stand at Elland Road and paused for a second. A cacophony of high-pitched screams and yells drifted up the stairs from the car park where the England team bus waited. Southgate listened to the giddy din of young fans acclaiming his young players as they prepared to leave for Russia on their World Cup adventure.

It was a strange noise. It sounded like optimism.

Ever since 2006 and the final throes of the group of players that were cursed as The Golden Generation, it has felt deep down when England departed for a major tournament as if they were being sent to their doom.

This time feels different. Not because all of England believes they will win the World Cup. But because some of the players do. And because, at last, they appear to have a manager with a cogent long-term ethos that is starting to fire the imagination.

They have moved beyond the pragmatism of Sven-Goran Eriksson, the distrust of Fabio Capello, the angry dismay of Roy Hodgson to a manager who is refusing to operate within the confines of the same narrow parameters.

Southgate is trying to be more ambitious. He knows that it is about results. It is just that he is trying to achieve those results by learning from how his more experienced predecessors failed.

So he climbed another flight of stairs at Leeds’ ground and started to talk. He is trying to build a spirit and a togetherness that has been lacking in the past.

Southgate is pushing the boundaries. He is asking players to open up to each other and to the media. He has realised what many of his predecessors failed to realise: that if he doesn’t build these people as men, he will not be able to build them as players, either.

‘Why would I limit what they feel is possible?’ said Southgate, after he had watched his team beat Costa Rica 2-0 in their final World Cup warm-up game. ‘My job is to allow people to dream, to make the impossible seem possible. ‘They are at an age with a hunger, enthusiasm and no little quality that they can keep improving but we must improve to reach the latter stages of the tournament and that will take a lot of hard work over the next few weeks. I am seeing evidence that they are embracing that challenge. ‘There is an optimism about youth. They believe anything is possible, which it is. They play with exuberance and energy and a lot of pace throughout the team. That allows us to create an environment where they are having a go at things we ask them to do, where sometimes I think: “They’ll never go for this”.

‘That would be more difficult with older players, who could be a lot less open to new suggestions. But this group are keen to show people how much it means to them to play for England.

‘I am proud to lead the team. That goes right through the group. We are looking forward to going and I have told them that we will attack the tournament.’

Fans and journalists alike are susceptible to the intoxication of a team packed with young players.

Southgate’s squad has an average age of 26, the second youngest in the competition behind Nigeria, and has the joint lowest average number of caps with 20. It is hard not to enthuse about the potential of the side stocked with talents like Raheem Sterling (right), Dele Alli, Harry Kane and Marcus Rashford (left), who scored a superb opening goal at Elland Road.

But it is important to balance it against the realities of facing more accomplished teams with more experienced players like Spain, Brazil, Argentina and Germany.

But there is something about Southgate’s faith in this band of emerging players and the way he is trying to empower them on and off the pitch that makes it feel as if he is on to something. This World Cup will be too soon for Southgate’s team, but he isn’t saying that. The manager appears more and more impressive in the job in terms of the tone he sets and the atmosphere he is building. He is in tune with the players. It is hard to see there being any repeats of the so-called Cape Town Coup that befell Capello in 2010 or the discord sown by Glenn Hoddle’s management of David Beckham in France in 1998. ‘I have to allow them the space to grow and freedom to play,’ said Southgate. ‘None of us will get excited for just getting out of the group, but we must play and prepare well to do that. ‘Any suggestion of a meeting receives a certain look but we are asking them to open up on their own

There is optimism about the youth. They believe anything is possible — which it is, of course