C’mon, England!

Three years ago, before England played Italy in the final of Euro 2020 (which had been postponed by twelve months due to Covid), I wrote:

I shall watch tonight’s match hoping for but not expecting an England win. Experience has taught me not to be so presumptuous.

Also, while many people will say the result is the only thing that matters, that’s no longer true for me.

I want England to win but if Italy are clearly the better team – and win – I will be fine with that.

The same is true tonight. I’d like England to win but if Spain are by some distance the better team, and win, I’ll be disappointed but will accept it with good grace.

Truth is, I’ve had a difficult relationship with men’s football, including the England football team, for some time.

At the World Cup in Qatar in 2002 I didn’t bother watching the quarter-final against France because I sensed the inevitable defeat, and I was right, although reports suggested England played well and, had it not been for a missed penalty near the end, they might have gone on to win.

Having watched every England match up to the semi-final in Euro 24 I couldn’t bring myself to watch most of the Netherlands match because I found the previous games so frustrating I was actually shouting at the TV (at the age of 65!).

Instead I kept an eye on the live updates on the BBC News website while watching a new police drama on iPlayer.

At half-time I turned over to ITV where the pundits confirmed that England were playing quite well but my natural pessimism kicked in and I returned to The Turkish Detective, going back to the football only when I saw they had scored in the last minute.

I’ll watch the final tonight but is it too much to ask for good football from both sides? Three years ago, when a European Super League was briefly on the table, I wrote:

A clip was posted on Twitter recently that showed Dundee United playing Hibernian in the mid to late Sixties. It was quite short but it was a revelation.

It showed wave after wave of attacks on the opposition goal. As soon as United lost the ball they would win it back. Old-fashioned wingers and inside forwards ran at the defence at every opportunity.

Compared to the football we often see today it was exhilarating. Yes, today's game at the very top level is more skilful, more athletic and better organised tactically, but it can also be very boring.

I’ve been watching football for over 50 years and the poor matches have always outnumbered the good, but for me there is something rather sterile about a lot of today’s football. Aside from isolated moments of great skill, it rarely gets you on your feet.

That's the real elephant in the room no-one wants to address. More often than not modern football is not a great spectacle.

Personally, I blame Pep Guardiola, the former Barcelona manager now approaching his ninth season at Manchester City where he has enjoyed extraordinary success.

I’m not disputing that Guardiola is a fantastic, innovative coach whose possession-based teams can, at their very best, be brilliant to watch.

The problem is, the experience can also be very tedious - hundreds of passes, the majority going side-to-side or, worse, backwards.

Opponents are inevitably set up to defend en masse and the result is a tactical chess match whose outcome is often decided by an error or a moment of great skill.

The problem is, those moments - even at the highest level of the game - are few and far between.

Worse, Guardiola’s success has encouraged teams at all levels of the game to ‘pass out from the back’ and keep possession of the ball as if their lives depend on it.

In practise this means a generally cautious, safety first approach that is robbing the game of much of its appeal.

To be clear, I support possession-based football, with the ball played to feet rather than up in the air, and there’s nothing particularly new about it.

But there has to be balance between a short and long passing game that can stretch the opposition, and in the modern era football has gone too far in favour of keeping the ball at all costs.

Watching England in Euro 24 has been the most frustrating experience because how often has one of our ‘world class’ midfielders taken on an opponent and run past them?

Instead, the default pass has been sideways or back, often to the goalkeeper.

Other teams have done it too but it’s worse when England do it because some of our players are better than that.

Given England’s historically poor tournament record I accept that Gareth Southgate’s record as head coach - two finals, a semi-final and a quarter-final in four attempts - is remarkable, but how many times have we played really well and entertained supporters?

Don’t get me wrong, I want England to win tonight but I also want victory to be deserved. A ‘moment’ of brilliance amid a sea of sludge will not be enough if we bore the rest of the world to sleep.

That’s why, whatever happens tonight, it’s time for Southgate to move on. Considering the mess he inherited (England losing to Iceland at Euro 2016), he’s done an excellent job in many, many respects.

But it’s not just about winning a single tournament with a handful of moments that obscure the mind-numbing tedium of many England performances. We need a coach who can unlock something more.

In my lifetime the two greatest international teams have been Brazil in 1970 and again in 1982.

It’s true that Brazil didn’t win the 1982 World Cup but they were the most exciting team by some margin, and who remembers much about the eventual winners Italy, apart from the match against Brazil where they surprised everyone by winning 3-2.

As for 1970, Pele’s Brazil won every match they played with brilliant attacking football and never looked like losing.

It says everything that one of England’s finest World Cup performances was in defeat, losing 1-0 to that extraordinary Brazilian team.

But here’s the thing. In 1970 England were the defending champions and although they played well in that match they played with caution and only came out of their defensive shell when they went behind.

After that they scorned several opportunities, including Geoff Astle hitting the bar when it seemed easier to score.

I’d like to think tonight will be different and England won’t wait until they are behind before giving it a good go, but I’m not convinced Southgate has that in his locker as a coach.

In any case, he would probably argue, why change a winning formula.

It’s true too that in 1966 England didn’t play that well and their sole World Cup winning tournament is best remembered for a few ‘moments’ - Bobby Charlton’s goals against France and Portugal, plus Geoff Hurst’s hat-trick in the final against West Germany - but it’s hard to argue they didn’t deserve to win the tournament because no other side was obviously better.

In Euro 2024, however, Spain have clearly been the best team and therefore deserve to win.

Better technically, they will probably give England more space in their own half, but I do hope we give it a real go and take risks rather than hoping to nick a win with a ‘moment’ or, worse, on penalties.

In sport, and especially in football, the best team doesn’t always win so although I predict a 3-0 win for Spain, Gareth Southgate’s side are not without a chance.

C’mon, England!