England Expects! Too Much?

I used to dream of tournament semi-finals and finals, now they are here and England are competing with the world’s best. Yet it is still not enough for a lot of fans who seem to expect England to win and win playing exciting expansive football winning tournaments every two years.

Of course this expectation is completely unrealistic, but it is something in the future to strive for, but one that is always going to be difficult and sometimes need a certain amount of luck. At one time though it was a dream that England would get to the last week of a tournament, let alone the final weekend of a tournament. Southgate has taken England to three last weekends of the last four tournaments, two Euro finals and one World Cup 3rd place playoff.

The expectation of the England side, especially at this Summer’s European championships, became out of hand and completely over the top, this was highlighted when England had just won their group and manager Gareth Southgate had plastic cups thrown at him, presumably because some so-called-fans thought the performance was more important that the fact England had topped the group.

When Gareth came in on a temporary basis in 2016, this was after the chaotic and horrendous few months for England on and off the pitch, which started at Euro 2016 in late June when England lost embarrassingly to a lowly Iceland in the 2nd round of the tournament. This was followed by Roy Hodgson’s replacement Sam Allardyce having to resign after being caught in a newspaper sting by the Daily Telegraph in late September, after winning his one and only game with a late Adam Lallana winner in Slovakia.

Two years before in Brazil at the World Cup of 2014, England came bottom of the group without a win and one draw in a dead game against an already qualified Costa Rica. To be fair England were drawn into a difficult group with Euro 2012 finalists Italy, Uruguay who were current Copa America champions from 2011 and had finished 4th in the previous world cup in 2010 and eventual dark horses Costa Rica who won the group and eventually got knocked out by penalties in the quarter finals by the Netherlands. Although this was an extremely disappointing campaign for England, if you compare this to recent tournaments under Southgate the idea of England going out in the group phase is now unimaginable.

Another example is the appalling Euro 2008 qualifying campaign which resulted in Steve Mclaren’s England team failing to even qualify for the tournament in Austria & Switzerland. This was after a 2 – 3 home defeat to Croatia in the final qualifying match in late 2007. This was the last time England failed to qualify for a major tournament and Steve Mclaren was replaced by the famous Italian coach Fabio Capello. Qualifying campaigns were better, with England qualifying for the South African World Cup in 2010 and Euro 2012 in Ukraine and Poland, but Capello resigned only weeks before the tournament due to a disagreement with the Football Association. This meant Roy Hodgson was brought in with short notice for Euro 2012.

The point is until Gareth Southgate turned up and changed the national team to be a complete unit, not fractured by club football like it was in the 2000s, what were the high points before Southgate? Italia 90, Euro 96 and a 5 – 1 qualifying win in Munich against a very poor German side in 2001. The expectation is always high after a lot of fans have rose tinted glasses of “66”. That number that always gets spoken about at every tournament. It is so long ago and it will be 60 years ago in summer 2026 when the 48 team expanded World Cup will be in the USA, Canada and Mexico.

England were a great side at the end of the 60s, when they won their own World cup in 1966 and reached the Euro 68 finals tournament in Italy, in which England lost late to Yugoslavia in the semi-final, but then beat a good Soviet Union side to finish in 3rd place. After this though the fortunes of England went down quite rapidly, there was a disappointing 2 – 3 extra time quarter final defeat to West Germany in the 1970 World cup after leading 2 – 0, this was followed by 10 years of tournament wilderness from World Cup 70 to Euro 80. Something that would be considered a complete failure now, failing to qualify for two World cups and two European championships. The wilderness only ended when both tournaments expanded which meant there were more chances to qualify. This was in Euro 80 when the competition expanded from 4 to 8 European national sides and World Cup 82 from 16 to 24 national teams.

Unfortunately success is not enough for a lot of the fans, because it is all about the Southgate style of football, safe and not risky. Not surprising considering he was a defender for all his career. This is where things started to get strained at this tournament, where results and success did not matter, it was more that the fans wanted to see attractive expansive football with the world class players we have. It happens at club football more often, where the team are getting more than often positive results, but those wins are not attractive to watch to the majority of the fans.

I look back at this tournament and I see a lot of variance in different philosophies from many teams, but I only saw one team that played expansive exciting football and succeeded, this was Spain and it would be hard to find anyone who does not agree that they were deserved winners. Key to Spain’s success was playing their “reserve” side in their final group game against Albania after they had secured top spot in the win over Italy. The other teams that played expansive quick attractive football in all their matches went out of the tournament much earlier, we looked at Georgia and enjoyed every minute of their tournament, along with Turkey who played on the front foot. These two teams were knocked out in the last 16 and quarter finals respectively. I fear that if we play expansively early in the tournament, we score lots of goals, but then lose in the last 16 or the quarter finals. The idea of Southgate’s philosophy is to try and win the group (3 games) and win four knock out matches comprising of seven matches in 28 days in total.

What is next for England now that Gareth has left, either a continuity coach, an English coach or a big unrealistic name that most likely will not take the position or will take the position when they are ready or when their contract runs out. If that is the case, we would need to put in an interim manager, personally the ideal candidate is under 21s coach Lee Carsley which is the continuity choice for England.

Personally, of course I would love to see England playing exciting football and winning, but I would sooner have what we have experienced over the last 6 years than playing attractive football and losing earlier in the tournament. I presume that is what the new manager/coach will have to balance moving forward.

Ian Newson Plested