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- It’s time to get behind Gareth Southgate ahead of England’s semi-final clash
- Although he can be frustrating, Southgate’s tournament record is impressive
Standing in the bowels of the Merkur Spiel-Arena late on Saturday night, Gareth Southgate let the mask slip, possibly for the first time.
Maybe it was the adrenaline of another nerve-shredding evening. Maybe it was the realisation that, for him at least, the end is nigh. Or maybe he has just had enough of it. Maybe the man who has now taken England to three semi-finals in four tournaments has finally had his fill of the abuse and the aggro that tend to come his way whether England win, lose or draw.
Having played a typically straight bat to a question about whether he and his players are afforded enough respect, he finally gave vent to his real feelings when it was subsequently put to him that he was hardened to the criticism.
‘This is a job where you get ridiculed and your professional capability is questioned beyond belief,’ Southgate said. ‘I don’t think it’s normal to have beer thrown at you, either.
‘But I’m fortunate that my life has taken me through a lot of resilience-building and it’s made me more determined. I’m just using this as fuel.’
That is as open as Southgate has ever been regarding his rather unique set of professional circumstances.
After the surprise journey to the last four of the 2018 World Cup in Russia, a run which opened our hearts to possibilities that we had thought belonged only to other nations, the 53-year-old has slowly felt the tide of public opinion turn against him.
The morning after his team had come within a penalty shootout of winning England’s first major trophy since 1966 at Wembley in the summer of 2021, Southgate was asked on a media Zoom call whether he felt he was a negative coach.
From that point on, the label has stuck and now we have arrived at this peculiar point, where almost 26million watched England prevail against Switzerland across BBC One and the iPlayer — and thousands more threw their beer in the air in celebration at fan parks across the country — only to then turn the TV off or get the bus home and tell anybody who will listen the manager is not good enough.
In this context, Southgate’s circumstances as England boss really are unique.
Previous coaches of the national team have had it tough, too — Graham Taylor, Bobby Robson, Sven Goran Eriksson, Steve McClaren, Fabio Capello and Roy Hodgson. The difference is that they were placed in metaphorical stocks for losing too many matches. Southgate gets it in the neck even when he wins.
Here in Germany, Southgate has not had a good tournament. It has been his worst. His tactical and in-game state of stasis has been mirrored by the largely moribund nature of England’s football.
Nobody who has sat through England’s five tournament games can argue that Southgate’s team have played well. They have only won one game in regulation time, against Serbia, and have been fortunate to come through two knockout matches that could easily have been lost.
Southgate has shown himself to be inflexible and predictable in terms of his selections. He has, to a degree, been shown up by some of the tournament’s other managers.
England are still here, though, and under Southgate they do tend to be. His many critics will say he is simply lucky to have good players. But then many of his predecessors did, too, and before he took the job in late 2016, England had only reached two semi-finals in the previous 50 years.
So maybe Southgate can point to a change in culture and a change in attitude that now enable England to go deeper into tournaments, even when they don’t play particularly well.
England’s penalties against the Swiss on Saturday were immaculately taken. Rarely if ever before has a group of English footballers looked so certain of themselves ahead of one of the most onerous tasks in the professional game.
Players such as Bukayo Saka will talk of a debt to Southgate on this particular matter. Saka missed horribly against the Italians in that 2021 final, yet scored with beautiful conviction in Dusseldorf.
Whether you choose to ignore Southgate’s role in Saka’s growth and development as an international footballer is up to you. But, looked at objectively, his influence is clear. So Southgate and his team go on to Dortmund and a semi-final against the Netherlands.
The hope for improvement in England’s football has perhaps gone now. If it was going to arrive, it would have done so against Slovakia or Switzerland and broadly speaking it didn’t.
It may well be that our best hope is the kind of stickability and dogged reluctance to lose that has suddenly become part of this group’s make-up.
The Dutch have had their problems, too. Manager Ronald Koeman, with whom England have a rich and painful history, spent the early part of this tournament railing against what he saw as unfairly negative media coverage of his team.
The Dutch press, on the other hand, accused him of ducking difficult questions by sending his players out to face the music. We would be quite wrong to believe England are the only team who have stumbled to this point in the tournament.
The Dutch lost to Austria and finished third in their group. France, who play Spain in Munich on Tuesday night, have won only one game in 90 minutes and have made it this far via two own goals and a penalty from Kylian Mbappe. Their quarter-final against Portugal finished goalless and the French prevailed in the shootout.
Maybe this tells us that tournament football is quite hard. Maybe it tells us we should count our blessings.
For many, their relationship with Southgate has gone well beyond that. They just want him gone and, regardless of what happens over the next seven days, they are likely to get their wish next week.
Between now and then, though, maybe it is time just to be thankful for what we have rather than all the things we haven’t.
Southgate is one win away from a second tournament final in three summers. It may just be time to put the reservations to one side and pray for progress.