European football championships | England is doing well, but few are satisfied – “The atmosphere is strange”

Cologne

When Jude Bellingham finally managed to score in the fifth minute of overtime of the quarter-final, the ventilation of England’s 10 shirt spoke of enormous pressure. Who else, meaning “anyone else”, he roared at the English fans in Gelsenkirchen, making a mouth-opening gesture with his fingers. Just criticize yourselves!

And yes, demanding English supporters as well as the country’s numerous football experts will find something to criticize in the national team’s performances.

The game construction of the team sucks in the European Championships, the game is boring, and you hardly know how to create scoring chances. The head coach Gareth Southgate is seen to be wasting the team’s enormous expertise, and he has received beer mugs and whistles flying at him from the fans at the European Championships.

Team playing is said to be tired, slow and cautious.

And yet England did it – went on. On Sunday evening at Schalke’s stadium in Gelsenkirchen, the white shirts beat Slovakia, who defended closely, 2-1 in overtime. England thus advanced to the group of eight in the tournament, and on Saturday the British will meet Switzerland in the quarter-finals.

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“It’s coming home has been an ironic expression for a long time.”

Dream living, one would say for most teams, but for England at the moment, living seems almost too strong a term. Maybe the dream is moving forward? Still breathing?

It’s best to ask English fans themselves, connoisseurs of their country’s football. When I was in Cologne last week for the British team’s final group game against Slovenia, daydreaming seemed to be very much a part of English loud supporter culture anyway. The dream of “football coming home”.

It’s coming home– a familiar saying was seen on the flags and hats of many English fans who came to the European Championships. One of them was Lewis in his red away shirt and white and blue sun hat.

“Will it really come home this summer?” I asked Lewis.

“No. It’s meant ironically,” he stated dryly, in a very English manner.

” It’s coming home has long been an ironic expression for us fans. Because we haven’t won anything in such an awful long time. It’s just a joke.”

“And yet every time before the Games we become optimistic again, even though deep down we know that nothing will come of it again. And fans from other countries think we’re arrogant because we say now the trophy is coming home, they use that phrase as motivation against us as well. But they just don’t understand English humor,” Lewis explained with a shrug.

Lewis’s dry explanation aptly describes the painful, downright manic-depressive relationship of England, the mother country of football, with its own national team. The scars run deep and there are plenty of them, bitter disappointments from one competition to another.

In the last European Championship in the summer of 2021, Southgate’s England made it all the way to the final, only to lose it to Italy on penalties 3-2.

Ouch!

When I spoke to many English supporters in Cologne, especially the older ones, who very quickly took an ironic view of their team’s chances of success. As if you don’t want to give too much space to hope.

“I was born in 1966, and I was two weeks old when England won the World Cup. Of course I don’t remember anything about it… But it’s our only championship. We haven’t won anything in such an awful long time, so we feel all those disappointments. Young fans can hope, I know that, but they haven’t lived through everything like we have.” Baz described, and as if to prove his words, two Arsenal fans in their twenties, sunburned by the sun, rolled their heads next to them in fatalism, preferring to give Southgate tactical advice:

“Just think if Kane and Ollie Watkins would play together in attack… That would be the key. And Kane just needs decent serves in front of the goal.”

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“We are developing”

So – the right tactics, the right opening pitch. The right key. From the English bitter humor, we end up with team tactical questions, which have been enough in this tournament.

There are head coaches who have a clear strategy that they lean on, so they pick players that fit that mold. Like, for example, the Austrian pilot Ralf Rangnick.

Then there are coaches who first look at their roster and build their style of play around their key players, try to get as many players as possible in a role where they can play to their strengths. This is what the head coach of Germany does, for example Julian Nagelsmann.

And then there are managers like Southgate who don’t really follow either approach.

Of course, Kane plays in England’s top and Bellingham in the tenth place, both basically in their characteristic roles. But on the left side Phil Foden and injured Luke Shaw throbbing Kieran Trippier are forced into spaces where they are not comfortable.

The team’s left wing has been almost unusable for four EC matches already, and that is not a good sign.

“We haven’t managed to find the last pass and the best finish yet, but we are improving,” Southgate told the press in Cologne, and that sentence says a lot. It shows concern.

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“We work so hard, and sometimes it still doesn’t go well.”

Southgate the team should know how to “find the last pass” and “the best finish”, because the team includes Kane, who scored 48 goals last season, Bellingham, who served 27 goals and 16 assists this season, and Foden, who scored 40 power points, completed 20 shots and assisted 15 goals Bukayo Sakaas well as many other power men.

England’s team is full of attacking quality, but they play cautiously, without taking risks, and the players do not complement each other on the pitch. It is Bellingham, Foden and Kane who are all players who want to get on the ball, want a pass at their feet. The problem is that there are other players in their clubs who, in these situations, strike towards the opponent’s goal.

In Bayern, when Kane drops into the midfield against a pass, space opens up in his back, and then Leroy Sané starts already standing up, where the ball is played to him. The idea is not complicated, but it is precisely these depth runners that England have been missing.

In the quarter-final against Slovakia, Southgate clearly wanted more deep runs from his team, but they were not very effective. Kane remained quite disciplined in his center forward plot, and Bellingham also often stuck in the penalty area waiting for crosses. England’s game lacked fluidity, and although there were 16 shots, they were not from good positions.

Against Slovakia, luck saved England in the end, as well as special situations and the generosity of the fourth official with regard to extra minutes. In the fifth minute of overtime, Bellingham took a scissor kick from a practiced set piece, and that shot was the white shirts’ first goal-directed drive of the game — it sank. At the beginning of extra time, another attempt from the aftermath of the free kick came into the goal frame, Kane’s header, which also sank.

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“The atmosphere is strange.”

“Atmosphere is strange,” Southgate said in Cologne, referring to the continued criticism of himself and the team, even as England surge ahead in the tournament.

The group win and the place in the quarterfinals did not silence the critical voices.

“Playing for England should be one of the proudest things in a footballer’s career, but it is often difficult. There are really intense pressures. The fans expect a lot from us. People talk a lot. And yes, you have to take it a little personally. We work so hard, and sometimes it still doesn’t go well. Sometimes it feels like there’s been a lot of criticism, so it’s nice to sometimes give back to the critics as well,” Bellingham said after the Slovakia game, referring to his winning goal and his open mouth gesture.

At that point, as Bellingham waved to the fans, Captain Kane appeared next to him and said something to the young superstar, after which both spread their arms to the sides in a big cheer.

This duo is England’s hope in the future of the tournament as well. Bellingham, a young and confident winning type, who is starting to have diva antics. As well as the modest con man Kane, who is clearly not the winning type, but an unyielding team leader.

“Hopefully we can take advantage of this last-minute win and continue stronger going forward,” captain Kane said after the Slovakia game.

England will continue in the tournament, first towards the strong Switzerland, and one day towards home. it’s coming home although ironically.

England’s longing for their first European Championship and their first major league win in 58 years is huge. It’s easy to notice at the European Championships. That longing weighs on the shoulders of the players, makes the head coach wary, inspires the fans and at the same time cuts deep inside them.

And so the mouths go, players and fans alike; they roar with criticism and love.

Alternately.