Booed before the start, whistled and heavily criticised at Euro 2024, Gareth Southgate qualified England for a second continental final in a row, an unprecedented performance in the country of football, where the coach’s confident and sometimes audacious choices are now praised.
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” Pilloried, insulted, but it’s Southgate’s England in the final “, summed up the daily newspaper The Guardian, for whom playing a new final, three years after the defeat against Italy on penalties, constitutes ” an extraordinary advance in the light of English history “.
Southgate is not Alf Ramsey, the boss of the “Three Lions” who won the 1966 World Cup on home soil. But he has stabilised the team at the top of football with, in eight years, a quarter-final (World Cup 2022), a semi-final (World Cup 2018) and two finals, therefore.
Before him, England had only played one, the title, in twenty-three major tournaments, Euros and Worlds combined.
Read alsoEuro 2024: England beat Netherlands to join Spain in final
The 53-year-old manager, with limited experience on the bench, was able to rebuild solid foundations on a field of ruins when the federation entrusted him with the keys in 2016, at the end of a failed Euro under Roy Hodgson and a short-lived succession missed by Sam Allardyce.
” I think we’ve given our fans some of the best nights of the last 50 years and I’m very proud of that. “, he savored on Wednesday after the qualification acquired against the Netherlands (2-1).
The wind of happiness was blowing as strongly in Dortmund as the criticism that affected the coach before and during the tournament in Germany.
” We all want to be loved, don’t we? When you do something for your country and you’re proud to be English, it’s hard not to be loved and take all the criticism. To be able to celebrate a second final is very, very special. ” he tasted.
Inspired changes and fixed ideas
The last friendly match, lost against Iceland at Wembley, ended with whistles, mainly directed at the coach, who according to the public was incapable of improving the great talent of his players.
Once in Germany, the criticism redoubled, especially from the former glories of the selection. During the first round, sluggish, Southgate was even targeted by plastic cups thrown from the stands.
Hit, but not sunk, the technician assumed his choices, notably that of a virtually unchanged starting “eleven”, where only the young midfielder Kobbie Mainoo won a starting place.
Spectators and pundits alike have been clamoring for the removal of Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane, who were powerless starters against Slovakia (2-1 aet) in the round of 16. The former equalised in added time and the latter scored the qualifying goal in extra time.
In the quarter-finals, his late changes again caused some concern. But the substitutes Cole Palmer, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Ivan Toney, with their established reputations for set pieces, allowed qualification with successful penalty shootouts against Switzerland (1-1, 5-3 on penalties).
Enough to erase, in part, the painful memory of the missed session against Italy, in the final of the 2021 edition at Wembley…
Same again against the Netherlands: the winning goal, in added time, came from two substitutes, striker Ollie Watkins and the ferryman Palmer.
” I was wondering when the changes would happen. They were right, perfect. “, exclaimed former English football legend Alan Shearer, who has not been the most gentle with Southgate so far.
The coach knows well, however, that history will remember his clean record more than his successive achievements, despite the spectacular recovery made under his orders. This is the whole challenge and the vertigo of the final, Sunday (19:00 UT) against Spain in Berlin.