If the grand statement above gives away major clues to the man behind a famous quote, you aren’t wrong because one of the famed theorists of Stoicism, Lucius Seneca, delivered it.
WE SUFFER MORE IN IMAGINATION THAN IN REALITY and the reality for England manager Gareth Southgate and his brilliant crop of lads is that they are getting peppered by the imaginations of what people believe should be their reality rather than looking at reality and realizing that a team is a reflection of its leader.
It is true that Gareth Southgate is coaching a team that has the Bundesliga’s top goal scorer, the EPL Best Player Award winner and the La Liga Best Player Award winner but is still underperforming with all three players being inefficient and largely unproductive.
Up and down the roster, there is quality with even the less heralded Jarrod Bowen coming off a tremendous season where he bagged 20 goals and won West Ham United’s Player of the Season Award.
Behind headliners like Phil Foden, Kyle Walker and Bukayo Saka, lies a wealth of top young performers like Kobbie Mainoo, Cole Palmer, Adam Wharton and Anthony Gordon. As such, the expectation is for Southgate to replicate what Vicente Del Bosque pulled off with Spain in La Roja’s Golden Run but that hasn’t happened yet and very likely won’t ever happen considering what has panned out under Southgate.
The former player has been the lead coach for King Charles’ Men over the past eight years and in that time, England have made it to a World Cup semifinal, European Final and a World Cup quarterfinal. It is quite shocking that fans of the Three Lions and pundits alike are surprised England have played the way they have done in the 2024 Euros thus far. This is what Gareth Southgate’s team has looked for several years so why expect things to be any different.
Besides, in a tournament dominated by deep defensive blocks, drawn results and have made organization-obsessed coaches like Ralf Rangnick of Austria, Murat Yakin of Switzerland, Francesco Calzona of Slovakia and Edward Iondanescu of Romania the toast of the fans, having England struggle to break teams down shouldn’t be the most outrageous thing to happen in Germany.
Jude Bellingham’s demonstrative celebration after scoring what turned out to be the winner in England’s 1-0 triumph over Serbia in the opening game of the 2024 Euros gave away the one true battle the Three Lions was dealing with.
By stretching his fingers out and motioning an open and shut sequence close to his ear, the Real Madrid star was telling the world that they hear the chatter but are doing well to not pay attention to it.
Conversely, the sheer size of the scrutiny and more importantly, the reputation of some key personalities scrutinizing England’s play at these Euros have made it impossible to drown out the criticism. England’s players particularly captain Harry Kane and old players are crossed with each other over Gary Lineker’s X rated comment about England’s performance in a 1-1 draw with Denmark.
It is about time the phrase, “don’t shoot the messenger” gets an update because the messenger is important if not more important than the message the messenger delivers.
Billions of fans make such foul comments all the time to England players but because of who Gary Lineker is, his comment had a major impact. This spat has inevitably seeped into the fan base and created a toxic atmosphere for the team as Gareth Southgate stated in an interview.
This toxicity came to a head when fans booed the team at half time and after a goalless draw with Slovenia though the result meant that England had topped Group D without recording a loss in three outings.
While the toxic “English” atmosphere, even in the face of top statistics going in England’s favour is a win for people like the author of this piece that football goes beyond stats, it is only fair to view England’s performances through a bit of the data matrix.
Through three games, England conceded just 26 shots that had a total average of 1.1 xG (expected goals) and that is on top of the only goal England conceded in three games (against Denmark), having an xG of a minuscule 0.02.
Like almost all teams competing in this year’s Euros, England is getting by with a stern defence but Southgate looks to be the only coach getting major blow back and at this point, the enormous flack he is taking is uncalled for.
England is getting the most important job done first by getting points to qualify and getting enough points to top the group and set up a round of 16 clash against a very beatable Slovakia side.
While the Slovaks are beatable, doing so will be difficult since they are very organized team so another relatively poor England performance with a win shouldn’t shock anyone.
Based on how the group stage shook out, England have ended up playing Slovakia in the next round and not the Netherlands. Beating Slovakia setups a quarterfinal match against Italy or Switzerland with a semifinal opponent being either Turkey, Austria, Netherlands or Romania.
England have practically avoided the other half of the field that holds France, Belgium, Portugal, Spain and Germany. Looking at the two halves, England are on the path filled with fewer land mines and have a clearer path to the finals.
The Trent Alexander-Arnold experiment hasn’t worked quite well as it looked on paper but in its final group game against Slovenia, Southgate made the changes many had called for.
Dropping the Liverpool player and starting Connor Gallagher was followed by introducing Kobbie Mainoo, Cole Palmer and Anthony Gordon. All three players put up good showings with Palmer having the best chance to give England the win but could only shoot straight at Jan Oblak.
The combination of these factors plus the introduction of Ollie Watkins as a substitute for Harry Kane in the 70th minute and not in the 87th minute, indicates that Southgate is willing to ring in the changes and shake up his team dynamic.
With Phil Foden expected to be further fatigued by his trip to England for his third child’s birth and back to the team camp, it is very likely Southgate starts Gordon or Palmer.
France, a heavy pre-tournament favourite, qualified to the round of 16 stage before its final group stage game without any of its vaunted and deep wealth of talents scoring a goal but England did the same thing with two of its best players- Bellingham and Kane-scoring to get them there.
For the record, France scored just as many goals in the group stage (two) as England, had the same goal difference and recorded the same number of points.
Belgium, another big name, struggled to qualify to the next round and making matters worse, head coach Domenico Tedesco was very hesitant changing his squad and persisted with starters like Romelu Lukaku and Leandro Trossard.
Young guys like Johan Bakayoko, Lois Openda and Charles de Ketelaere were given either limited or no minutes at all in the competition. Portugal, another favourite, also suffered a 2-0 loss to GEORGIA of all teams but England remains unbeaten and someway, somehow they are the ones getting bashed because their play has been a bit painful to watch.
The 2024 UEFA European Championship is a tournament where the winner plays seven games max and the competition is played out over a short period and isn’t a league competition that plays out over nine months.
Grinding out wins isn’t necessary an evil thing compared to the latter situation, where you simply can’t grind your way to a league title win.
The Anti-Gareth Southgate outcry is honestly overblown when it’s all said and done because even England’s fine run to the 2020 final also had a slow start and a fairly favourable path to the final. So all things considered, it shouldn’t shock you England ends up making it all the way to the Berlin Stadium.