England - Will it ever come home?
For the men's team at least
Can football ever come home? Well, the short answer is yes, it already has in fact.
Over the summer England’s Lionesses won Euro 2022 and delivered the country its second piece of silverware in international football. The ‘54 years of hurt’ are over but it is now up to the Men’s team to keep it going in Qatar next week (though I am incredibly sceptical about their chances).
Throughout this World Cup series, we have gone through the favourites for the competition - Brazil, France, Argentina, Germany and Spain and now we land on our final side, the Three Lions.
There is a weird relationship between the England team and the fans. There is an acceptance that the team is good, but there is also an expectation of disappointment due to other factors. However, the latter is instantly washed away the minute the team starts winning.
It’s like being offered a slice of cake and going ‘No thanks’ but then you look at the cake and unprompted by an ‘Are you sure?’ you say go on then and tuck in.
But you can understand both viewpoints.
England fans have a reason to be excited because what they have in front of them is a squad full of talented young players such as Phil Foden and Buyako Saka alongside experienced and reliable heads such as Kyle Walker, Raheem Sterling and Harry Kane.
And at the helm, there is a competent, if a little tactically unadventurous manager in Gareth Southgate, who may not play the football that everyone wants him to play, but he understands how to set up England in a tournament.
(As I’ve said many times throughout this series, you don’t set up a team to score in international tournaments, you set up a team not to concede)
However, the fans’ trepidation also makes sense.
Though considered the original footballing nation, England have only won two trophies and, until the Euros in 2020, they hadn’t reached another international final since 1966.
And this team, while stocked full of talent, pales in comparison to the golden generation of the 2000s.
2010-2014 marks a transition period for England, but either side are two great teams so these are the eras we are going to focus on.
The Golden Generation that never got far enough and let’s say the Silver Generation who just can’t get over the line.
So let’s start with the Golden Generation of 2000-2010 and see where they went wrong and how England of the present day has learnt and can learn more from their mistakes.
The first place to start would be with the manager.
Gareth Southgate has come under a lot of flak during his time in charge of the Three Lions and I agree this should be his last tournament, but I think the shouts that he is ‘clueless’ are wide of the mark.
(This piece is going to do a lot of jumping around so if you have gotten used to the chronological-ish format I apologise)
Southgate was appointed in 2016 and in 2018 we got to see what he had been cooking. His style is boring yes, but it is intentionally boring. It’s built on the concept that scoring goals is hard, so by minimising the number of goals you need to score (by conceding less) you can get a lot further.
Portugal and France demonstrated this in the 2016 Euros and 2018 World Cup respectively and it seems this caught Southgate’s eye. He told the media in March 2021:
“I just think when I’ve watched the French and Portuguese, teams that have won, they are savvy and experienced winners. And that’s something we have to add to this group.
“There’s a lot of young players in this group, they haven’t won things at their club - we’ve got to help them learn how to win big matches. That’s part of our responsibility as well as of course the experiences they will get at their clubs.”
But I think this is also a lesson that England have learnt from their ‘Golden Generation’.
I think before I go any further however I need to sidetrack for a second and explain how good England’s team was in the noughties.
England in the 2000s had one of the best national pools in the world. They had an incredible amount of talent at their disposal in nearly every area.
From the likes of Rio Ferdinand, John Terry, Ashley Cole and Sol Campbell in the back line, to Steven Gerrard, David Beckham, Paul Scholes Frank Lampard and Michael Carrick (we’ll get back to him don’t you worry) in the midfield they could fill the majority of the Starting XI with world-class players.
Add into this clinical attackers like Wayne Rooney, Alan Shearer, Michael Owen and Joe Cole just to name a few and this was a team that should have no problem at least making the later stages of the competition.
But their finishes? Out in the Quarter Finals in 2002 (though they did meet eventual winners Brazil), out in the Quarter Finals in 2006 and out in the Round of 16 in 2010.
Throw in that they failed to qualify for Euro 2008 and you can say that this team massively underperformed.
But in explaining why, let’s get back to the managers that they had during this time.
As I’ve got older, I’ve come to realise that Sven Goran Eriksson really wasn’t that great when he was England's manager.
Coming off the success of winning a Scudetto with Lazio in 2000, he was offered the England job in 2001 becoming the first non-British manager to be appointed by the FA.
He deserves some credit for getting England into the 2002 edition of the tournament, given the team had struggled under caretaker manager Peter Taylor, but they were games they should have been winning anyway.
You could also say he deserves some flowers for navigating the Group of Death in 2002, but I feel the motivation to beat Argentina after what happened in 1998 may have had a big effect on the mentality of the camp.
But a lot of the major flaws you remember about the England squad in the 2000s, Eriksson installed; the lack of balance and identity undermining what was a quality crop of players.
But to attribute all of England’s problems to Eriksson would be disingenuous, the three managers of this period all had the same problem.
Before you mention the win rates, I think it’s always difficult to judge international managers by them because the quality of the opposition can vary wildly. It only really starts to become consistently ‘good’ during major tournaments.
Eriksson, Steve McClaren and Fabio Capello, I believe all had the same problem, they thought England were better than they were and this hubris would ultimately undermine their efforts.
Emile Heskey would say of Eriksson:
“Sven’s CV spoke for itself, so he gathered respect within the dressing room straight away. He was very organised. When we went on the pitch, everyone knew their job and I enjoyed that – then on top of that, you could be spontaneous when you received the ball. We were prepared for what the opposition were going to throw at us.”
Kevin Keegan preceded Eriksson and was known for his minimal focus on tactics and even once fell asleep during a team meeting discussing them. So going from that to a guy with any tactics would seem like a massive jump in the right direction.
McClaren was a step back but then Capello was another step in the right direction. But what England perceived as them finally ascending to the peak of the mountain was actually them finally ascending a portion of the cliff face after languishing at the base, they still had a lot of work to do.
So when they tried to face the likes of Brazil, Germany and Portugal as equals they were either walked over or outplayed. They didn’t try and adapt to the game, they just played the way they thought England should play.
The Germany match in 2010 I think is a good example of this. Capello set his team up to go head-to-head with Germany and went 2-0 down, but Matthew Upson got one back before halftime to keep England in the game.
Then came the controversy - Frank Lampard’s ghost goal.
Early in the second half, Lampard struck a shot that hit the underside of the bar and crossed the line before bouncing back out. With no goal-line technology, it was not given.
Manuel Neuer later admitted he knew it had crossed over the line but had deceived the referee to gain the advantage:
"I tried not to react to the referee and just concentrate on what was happening. I realised it was over the line and I think the way I carried on so quickly fooled the referee into thinking it was not over."
Many claimed that if the goal was allowed it may ‘have turned the tide’, but here is the harsh truth… it would have done nothing. The way that Thomas Muller and the German side carved through the England defence to score a brace within three minutes showed the gap in tactical quality.
Now I’m not saying Southgate is perfect, his in-game management leaves a lot to be desired and I think Carl Anka’s analogy that ‘he’s a chef that will follow his recipe to the tee even if he can smell something burning’ is very apt, but he at least understands that a one size fits all approach won’t get you very far.
And I think this is one of the major lessons that was learnt from the Golden Generation, you can’t just expect to win because your team is good, you’ve got to think about it a lot harder.
And though the team he ends the game with isn’t always the optimal XI, the one he starts with usually is. And this is due to the next lesson that the Golden Generation taught the current team - the importance of balance.
Gerrard, Lampard, Scholes… No, we’re not playing that game, this is the debate that raged for almost a decade and still is talked about to this day even though all three have long since retired.
Why can’t they all play together?
Well, because they don’t offer balance is the simple answer. Gerrard and Lampard were both attacking eights, they attacked the spaces left in opponents’ back lines and scored a lot of goals in the process.
The issue was when they both played together in a two, they got in each other’s way and also if both of them are making an attacking run, who is going to pass to them?
Lampard confirmed as much in an interview in 2021:
“If myself and Steven are playing in midfield for England without anybody behind us, you had to always worry about where he was in relation to me to be able to make your natural runs.
“The worst thing in football is when you start second guessing your movement because it’s so fast, when you wait you can’t arrive.”
However, instead of playing someone behind Lampard and Gerrard, they tried to shoehorn Paul Scholes into the set-up, not in his preferred position as an eight like his two compatriots, but out on the left wing.
It was a colossal mess, but the issue was that England's manager (whether it was Eriksson, McClaren or Capello) didn’t want to drop his best players, he wanted to get all of them into the same XI, maybe believing that by playing them all he would never come under criticism for his selection.
And he was right, the question was ‘Why can’t Scholes, Lampard and Gerrard play together?’ rather than ‘Why are Scholes, Lampard and Gerrard playing together?’
And the problem was the solution was staring them right in the face.
Despite his long career at the top level, Michael Carrick only received 34 caps for the national team, his highest total in one year (7) came in 2006 but then he was largely ignored under Capello’s regime.
Carrick was an incredible defensive midfielder, able to shield the back line and also reliably recycle possession but even when the England manager decided that was necessary, he was overlooked for Scott Parker instead.
A midfield of Scholes, Carrick and one of Gerrard and Lampard would have struck the perfect balance. But it never happened and England struggled.
Thought this is not completely down to England. In an interview with the Daily Mail, Carrick opened up about how his mental health was affected by going away with England and he asked England to stop picking him:
“I had been in the squad a long time, I’ll be honest I was finding it hard going away with England. I didn’t mind going away with United in pre-season for three weeks or whatever and then coming back but going with England it was almost depressing in a way – it made me really down.
“I came to the point where I thought I can’t do that again and people will be saying pull yourself together and be grateful for it. I understood the position I was in, the privileged position I was in, but I just found it so hard and I couldn’t deal with it anymore.”
Now you may have realised that I have ignored Roy Hodgson’s spell as England manager so far, but there is a reason for that.
I see the former Fulham and Liverpool manager’s spell as a transitionary period, it doesn’t have the quality of players that either of the two other eras had/have at their disposal and it still has some of the mistakes of the Golden Generation while having some half-cooked ideas that have been fully developed today.
And throw in Harry Kane on corners for good measure.
But during the 2014 World Cup, we finally started to see the England side understand how to balance their midfield, even if it was only for three games before they crashed out of the competition.
They deployed a pivot of Gerrard with Jordan Henderson with Rooney playing in front of them. Henderson sat more and protected the defence while Gerrard was able to go forward; Rooney during this acted more like a second striker but also a creator.
Hodgson was incredibly complimentary of Henderson, some said it was because he bought him at Liverpool, but it was mainly because of the role he played in the midfield. He told the media:
“His rise has been quite meteoric really, although he’s been around for a long time it’s only in the last year that people have started to say: ‘This boy is a good player, this lad has got a lot of qualities.’
And while unsuccessful at the time, Hodgson’s blueprint is one that Southgate has adopted for his midfield (though slightly tweaked). He used it in 2018 and 2020 and based on World Cup qualifying he will also use it in Qatar.
Who sits and who goes forward is purely based on the situation and personnel. Declan Rice can play both roles, while Kalvin Phillips is a more defensive player and Jude Bellingham a more offensive, but this allows Southgate some flexibility but more importantly balance depending on who he is facing.
I’ve mainly focused on the midfield here because that involved the most obvious example, but it applies across the team as well.
Does your forward line have goalscorers but also creators? Dribblers but also players who can work off a few touches?
Do your defenders complement each other’s strengths and mask each other’s weaknesses? If you’re looking to use the style, do you have a cat and a dog?
I think Southgate manages this well for the most part. Somewhere he could improve though is when he does make a mistake with a selection, he needs to know how and when to make the change in-game.
And based on Southgate’s recent comments about the balance of the squad, this is something he is thinking about as well:
“We wanted to make sure we had the balance of the squad right. I think in this day and age, the squad is more important than ever. With five substitutes, you can have half of your team change during a game, so you want different options for different moments of matches and for different stages of the tournament as well.
“We have had to cover a couple of players who are not yet fully match fit so having 26 available meant we were probably able to take a couple of risks that you might not have been able to with 23.
“But we think the balance is there and we have cover in the positions we need. We're lighter on depth in some positions than others in our country but we think we've got everything covered.”
But it’s not all about tactics, there is one other element where I think that the England team under Southgate succeeds where the Golden Generation failed.
Togetherness and Unity.
It is an underrated factor of most successful international teams, but it is probably one of the most important.
Rio Ferdinand revealed in an interview that the players felt like they couldn’t get along and act truly as teammates because they were such close rivals in the Premier League. He stated:
“I considered the Premier League to be my title. So I was never going to walk into the England dressing room or the canteen and open up to Frank, to Ashley Cole, John, Joe Cole at Chelsea, or Steven and Jamie Carragher at Liverpool.
“I wouldn’t open up because of the fear that they would then take something back to their club and use it against us, to make them better than us. I didn’t want to engage with them in that sense.”
However, it’s not all the players’ fault. League rivals can coexist and thrive in the same team, this was shown by the 2010 Spain side which was mainly made up of players from Barcelona and Real Madrid.
It is up to the manager to grow those bonds and set the culture and I feel in this regard, Gareth Southgate has succeeded more than any other.
The England team are likeable not just to the fans but to each other and they have friendships that extend once the international break ends.
Declan Rice spoke about how when he first joined up with the England squad, the club made sure he felt part of the team:
“I felt comfortable the moment I walked through the door for my first camp back in March. All the lads made me feel welcome. I knew most of them anyway from playing against them and one thing I can say is that Gareth has really got this squad together.
“All the lads get on and nobody is left out, they all make you feel comfortable and I’m very grateful for that”.
Even if you don’t rate his tactical nous, the job Southgate has done in creating a solid and united front is commendable and most likely is directly correlated to their improvements on the pitch.
So, can England bring (men’s) football home?
Well they are certainly one of the favourites, but other teams could be considered stronger and then you’ve got to consider the injuries and the draws and….
Nah screw it, England are going to win it all, viva Gareth Southgate, up the Three Lions and to end this article and also my World Cup series I don’t think there’s any better way than with the song itself.
Hey Casey, this is a pretty nuanced piece. Loved reading it!
In the aftermath of the WC, would you add any comments OR update your POV on England's performance and how Southgate managed the team?