This piece was originally published in a different form on 12 July.
Gareth Southgate, who has just resigned as England manager, deserves better than what he got. He is not perfect, as some football journalists imply (you end up suspecting they’re particularly chummy with the right people). But it’s not too much to say that Southgate achieved something special in his eight years.
In 2018, he took England to the semi-finals of the World Cup, the first time since 1990. He took England to the final of Euro 2021, and then repeated the achievement despite playing far worse. True, we went out in the quarters in 2022, but against a France side that would end up making the final. He won more knockout games than every other England manager combined since 1966.
Southgate’s critics should also remember how bad the team he inherited was. When England lost 2-1 to Iceland at Euro 2016, an increasingly wheezy Wayne Rooney chuffed around in centre midfield; the goalkeeper Joe Hart had forgotten how to hold onto things. Gary Cahill lumbered about the pitch. Harry Kane was inexplicably taking corners. Sam Allardyce was appointed, which – thank God – didn’t last very long. The last resort stepped up, and showed some carefully calibrated ruthlessness in phasing out players like Rooney, so youngsters like Dele Alli and Jesse Lingard could start at Russia in 2018.
It takes a man of integrity, of uniquely honed man management, to turn an international team into heroes. With tournament football, teams only have a few weeks to prepare. Tactics are only so important. Spanish players entering the fray can fall back on knowing what they’re supposed to be doing – tiki–taka – and if you’re Italian, you learn to block all night long.
Without a distinctly English tradition of style, camaraderie matters far more. Before Southgate, players from different clubs hardly mixed in the camp. Now, they’re all bros. That’s never inevitable. Good boys this England squad aren’t. They might not quite be the rascals that the England team of the 2000s were, but they still require some special care. Kyle Walker, Ivan Toney, Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden, Jack Grealish, James Maddison: all of these bad boys could have blown up. Yet, to Southgate’s credit, none did.
The main criticism of Southgate was that he was dull. But since when did England fans start caring about style more than the result? Many supporters moan incessantly nowadays that Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City has made football boring. The idea is that, for most teams, style should not be the priority: winning should.
But that’s exactly the approach that Southgate has followed. The critics say that Southgate has never won a game that he probably shouldn’t have (except for the 2-0 win over Germany in 2021). But neither did they ever completely collapse against a minnow.
English fans have become curiously continental in their expectations of how stylishly Mainoo, Foden and Saka should be linking up. Saka offers a good example of tournamental tactics done right: he played at right-wing, left-back, and right-wing-back over the past few weeks, exhaustively and without a strop.
The other main charge against Southgate was that he was a coward. He waits too long to make subs, we’re told, and he picked his favourites. But then how do you explain him ruthlessly leaving out Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford? He was particularly brave at Euro 2024. With ten minutes to go in the semi final against the Netherlands, he took off the Premier League player of the season and the most in-form striker in the world. One substitute (Cole Palmer) then set up another for the winner (Ollie Watkins). In the final, he took off the captain (Harry Kane) after 60 minutes, and ten minutes later brought on Palmer, who scored. Compare that with the cowardice that other managers have shown this tournament: Portugal’s Roberto Martinez refusing to stand up to a rotten late-stage Cristiano Ronaldo, or Didier Deschamps’s insistence that France could win the tournament through own goals and penalties.
Euro 2024 didn’t feel quite as magical as Euro 2020 or the 2018 World Cup. ‘It’s Coming Home’ only started being belted out on Sunday morning. There wasn’t any madness: no jumping on buses or inserting flares up arses. Much of that misbehaviour at past tournaments was probably down to the sheer surprise of the 2018 run, and the post-Covid anarchy of 2021. Under Southgate, a sense of scholarly entitlement, or expectation, emerged, so that when Jude Bellingham scored a 94th minute bicycle kick, the reaction wasn’t crazed joy, but anger that it took so long.
I remember walking through central London after the Euro 2020 final. It was sinister and deeply sad. Cocaine was being taken in the street to cope with the pain, not to revel in the joy. Strangers who hours earlier had been hugging were growling at each other. Consistent success calmed England down.
Southgate was not blameless. Somehow his weary loser-ish, ‘nearly there’ demeanour infected everyone. The performances against Denmark, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland game were shocking. But things are much, much, much better than they were.
Comments