Football came home, but couldn’t find the front door

Picture: Twitter/England

The cold hard truth this morning is that England lost. There’s no sugar-coating the reality. We can look upon last night’s Euro 2020 final profoundly and stoically accept that England took Italy to penalties, and that football’s horrible, harsh lottery was the thinnest of margins that divided them. But, Italy scored three, and England just two. As if to compound the mood, it was cold and wet this morning when I woke at an equally cruel 5am to carry out an early work duty. Cold and wet. In July. England personified. 

The pain of last night at Wembley will wear off. It always does. Italy, let’s face it, were nailed-on finalists from the competition’s outset. L’Azzurri came to the Euros with an impressive record, and Roberto Mancini’s side maintained it. To the very last kick. Credit to them: yes, they resorted to outrageous shithousery at times - they usually do - but from start to finish, they exuded a class that the so-called other ‘big hitters’ lacked. Hence the earlier exits of France, the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal and Spain.

But when you put things into that perspective, England’s progress must stand as all the more impressive. Don’t get me wrong - this isn’t some ‘Little England’ pitch: England are a European football giant, it’s just that there are plenty of other giants. There are less giant teams, too, that defy predictable expectations about the usual suspects, like Denmark, for example, who overcame a near tragedy in their opening match to take their campaign to a semi-final. But, perhaps, as chastened as the England team might feel this morning, we finally saw an England in this tournament that we could enjoy.

And while the curse of penalties means that England still remain potless after 55 years, the positives surely must outweigh the disappointment. Getting to a final IS a big deal, and one that, we have all been reminded ad nauseam in recent weeks, has alluded the country since 1966. And though it defies logic, to lose on penalties is still only an unfortunate coda. We wallowed in those wayward spot kicks in 1990 and 1996 being endlessly replayed, but we always seem to forget that in both those cases England took Germany to kicks on level terms in open play. It only takes a blade of grass or a boot lace to make the difference.

Picture: Twitter/England

Hardcore England fans will, though, find it hard to gloss over last night’s missed penalties, but whatever we think of the five who stepped up, remember that they stepped up. A 23-year-old, a 21-year-old and a 19-year-old amongst them. It tales balls to hit those balls, and while, yes, that was what decided matters, how England got there by far outweighs the disappointment. Or, at least, how they got into the final. We’ll have to accept that Italy extending its unbeaten run to 34 games included them applying all their guile and cunning to get back into the game. Going 1-0 down after two minutes in a final can feel like a hill too hard to climb, and it looked to be that way for the first half. But Italy worked their way back in, wearing England down, making it hard for the home side to regroup and regather after each assault. 

Luke Shaw’s sublime goal so early in the fixture will go down as one of the best scored in the white shirt, while the Italian equaliser was a dismal effort bundled over the line. But they all count. And the Italian habit of stretching out games - and stretching opponents in the process - made the descent to penalties inevitable. As extra time ticked down - the first period and then the second - the sight of England’s assistant manager Steve Holland compiling a list behind Gareth Southgate had the air of a hangman preparing his noose in the village square. The knot in the pit of the stomach grew tighter, as if it hadn’t been tense enough for the hours and even days leading up to the game. 

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m horrible to be around when England play at tournaments. I don’t know why I can’t enjoy myself when so many others do. I’ve carped cynically about the euphoria that has carried through Euro 2020 as England progressed, worrying about the “Football’s coming home” refrain as being less of a rallying call as a jinx. I’ve growled at the media coverage, the predictable front page jingoism and the Crosses of St. George flags emblazoned across housing estates like demolition tarpaulins. Nerves got in the way of me being able to appreciate just what Gareth Southgate’s team has done for the country over these last few weeks, a country emotionally and physically sapped by a pandemic, but which found a Blitz-like spirit in the tournament.

Picture: Twitter/England

I hope, then, that we pick ourselves up. Football didn’t come home last night, and our hubris will have to reconcile that. But at least it found the front gate. It even found the keyhole, but like an inebriate returning late from the pub, couldn’t make the key work. Next time, they might. Southgate has much to build on, not least of which, his own performance as the England coach. That building work will also require an honest assessment of his decision making, the far-too late applications of Rashford and Sancho as substitutes, and the selection of young Bukayo as a penalty taker, which could legitimately call into question whether the strongest five were chosen to take the kicks. But these are the judgement calls that disproportionately overshadow the wider achievement of a young squad under Southgate who played like they were enjoying themselves, playing for each other rather than with each other, as has been the charge against England squads in recent years. There was an undoubted freshness about England at these Euros, unencumbered by history. They’ve got only a matter of months to prepare for the next World Cup, and you’d hope that won’t leave enough time for last night’s hangover to linger. If Southgate channels the positives, who knows what these young men can do next year in Qatar? Hopefully, he’s made this same squad hungry for more.

There’s so much more I could reflect on about England this morning. There’s so much more I can reflect on about the last few weeks. “The pain continues” is the inevitable view of the press today, but it really should be seen as a sting rather than a wound. It’s irritating, it’ll itch. It will remain red and angry for a few days more, but it won’t stop us daring to dream again. Football is about winners and losers. Some win, some lose. It doesn’t get simpler, or any more dramatic than that.

We’re not out of the woods yet. In fact, we’ve barely left the forest

If there’s one piece of football commentary, other than Kenneth Wolstenholme’s “They think it’s all over…” line from 1966, that I’d rather never hear again it’s the pained “Ohhhhhhh!!!!!!!!” expelled by Barry Davies as Gareth Southgate’s penalty kick was saved in that Euro ’96 semi-final. There’s something about England playing Germany that gets under everyone’s skin in this country because, on balance, it’s been a litany of disappointments following that moment of Geoff Hurst brilliance, 55 years ago. 

Since 1966 the two sides have met six times in tournaments, famously without an England victory in any knockout-stage game, and two semi-finals - the 1990 World Cup and the 1996 Euros - decided on the aforementioned dreaded penalties. Thus, in the run-up to yesterday’s Round-of-16 encounter between the team Southgate now manages and the old nemesis, we had to endure that Davies exclamation yet again, along with the pizza ad-generating penalty flops by Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle in Turin, 21 years ago. We also had to endure the Lampard ‘ghost goal’ against Germany in Bloemfontein in 2010, which played a part in a 4-1 departure from the same stage of competition as last night’s match. That defeat led to my debut as a blogger, with me, in a foul mood the next morning, bashing out 1000 angry words on the commute from Amsterdam to Eindhoven (my first blog, What Would David Bowie Do? was created and online within an hour of me sitting down at my desk).

That first post was undoubtedly a cathartic expungement of the mental toxins that had built up throughout my lifetime when it comes to England-Germany (I was born a year after the ’66 World Cup triumph - to date, the last time England won anything of note). We’ve allowed it to stick in our collective craw, fuelled by tabloid xenophobia that just loves to make reference to events in the first half of the last century. So, to meet Germany so soon in the knockout stage of Euro 2020 laid down a psychological hurdle to Southgate’s squad, a group young enough not to have been born when their head coach committed that infamous kick. The rational and non-partisan amongst you might be tempted to say that England have only beaten a team in the first round of the knockout stage of the tournament, and that greater challenges lay ahead on Saturday with Andriy Schevchenko’s tournament dark horses, Ukraine. But that doesn’t diminish the sheer relief around the stadium at the final whistle, and in pub beer gardens, fan parks, town squares and elsewhere yesterday evening, and the sense of elation that came from a rare victory over an apparent bogey. 

Picture: Twitter/England

That euphoria masked what was, actually, quite a cagey game. Southgate, as his somewhat nervous disposition does project, is not the most bullish of tacticians, and for much of the game at Wembley, England seemed to soak up German pressure. The margins between Joachim Löw's eurocrats and England were thin, thin enough that Raheem Stirling and Harry Kane were able to make use of the relatively meagre scraps thrown their way to produce a memorable victory, while Jordan Pickford pulled off a couple of brilliant saves (though one was against Timo Werner at point-blank range, which means that the shot could have gone anywhere in north-west London…).

Picture: Twitter/England

Better minds than mine have described the game as a “tactical masterstroke” on Southgate’s part, but I’m not so sure. Raheem Sterling’s 75th-minute goal came against expectation, especially given the lengthy scrutiny of his season at Manchester City, but his record at these Euros, scoring against Croatia and the Czech Republic, gave him the edge over Harry Kane in terms of goalmouth hope. When he eventually scored last night, notably after Jack Grealish had come on to liven up England’s otherwise cagey acceptance of the German press, it was a proper No.9’s goal. It gave me little pleasure to see Chelsea’s Antonio Rüdiger beaten in the build-up, but it seemed to be the goal that kicked everything else into life, with Kane - finally - doing his job ten minutes later, after a neat pass from Luke Shaw to Grealish and then onto the Spurs striker’s head. 

Did we dare, then, to believe? After the eye-straining events on Monday in the Croatia-Spain and France-Switzerland fixtures, the nervous and the cynical alike wouldn’t take anything for granted. Then again, this probably hasn’t been Germany’s best tournament, not that such an observation should have made any difference. Years of disappointment have informed us that tournament football rarely follows form. Germany weren’t poor - and Chelsea’s Kai Havertz appears to have come good for his club just at the wrong time for England - but when it counted, England had just the right combination of skill and luck, the two magic, if hard to quantify, ingredients that make for progress in these competitions.

Victory over Germany, which didn’t involve extra time or, worse, penalties, feels sweet. I hope that it has genuinely banished whatever it was that commentators felt compelled to refer to, as if England's failure in the past was down to bad luck, bad karma, or some UEFA conspiracy (the same that stops the UK from ever winning the Eurovision Song Contest). The reality, however, is that - spoiler alert! - someone has to win. In 1990 and 1996, Germany's victorIes on penalties both came after 1-1 draws in extra time, which means it is reasonable to assume that both sides were as good as each other, and it was just bad luck/boot laces/rogue blades of grass that meant that Waddle, Pearce and Southgate’s spot kicks didn’t cross the line.

England do, however, bumble along with traditions of history and fairness underpinning their game. How often is their lack of guile at fault for other sides getting beneath their skin. In modern parlance, it’s “game management”. For all the ultra-competitive Premier League blood that has run through England squads passim, we’ve grown used to disappointment by the thinnest of margins. Perhaps, then - and without loading the gun - we should have hope about what happens next? Perhaps, then, the disappointments of the past have been the result of England just not having as much belief as their Teutonic opponent, or as much guile and cunning as other opponents? Perhaps they’ve been, well, too English…?

Picture: Twitter/England

The key, now, is for England to play without fear, but also to play with the right psychology. Gareth Southgate is a bright, intelligent football man who has experienced the ignominy of a saved penalty on the game’s biggest stage. He, more than anyone at Wembley Stadium last night, would have savoured the moment and enjoyed the catharsis. He, though, will know that the job is far from done. In fact, it’s only just beginning.

“This [was] an immense performance but at a cost emotionally and physically,” he said afterwards. “We have to recover well and show that mentally we are in the right space. It is a dangerous moment for us: we will have that warmth of success and the feeling around the country that we only have to turn up to win the thing, but we know it is going to be an immense challenge from here on in.”

Age is on his players’ side, not having been to the knockout stages of a tournament before. And with all the talk of an “easy” path back to Wembley for a possible semi-final and even the final, it’s too easy for confidence to get in the way of focus. Defender Harry Maguire qualified this with his comments last night: “We have won one knockout game, and not to concede in four games is impressive, but we need to win three more games. There are a lot of good teams left in the competition and we have to play at the level we are capable of.” That test is still to come. England have entered uncharted waters in so many ways.

Picture: Twitter/England

Too much, too young?

Facebook/Chelsea FC

The sight, on Sunday afternoon, of Theo Walcott coming on for Everton as a substitute against Chelsea provided a curious premonition of the news yesterday that the 18-year-old Callum Hudson-Odoi had been called up by Gareth Southgate to England’s senior squad. Because it seems like only yesterday there was all that brouhaha over Walcott, at a slightly younger age, being included in Sven-Göran Eriksson’s England squad to play in the 2006 World Cup. Even now there is the oft-repeated refrain that Eriksson ruined Walcott by including him and that he was never the same again, which is nonsense as, at 17, he was not the finished article to begin with.

That has been much the same sentiment conveyed on Hudson-Odoi by Maurizio Sarri, his head coach at Chelsea, who has so far refrained from including the exciting winger in a Premier League starting line-up this season, preferring to give him the relative nursery slopes of the cup competitions. Sarri has maintained that Hudson-Odoi still has a lot of development to achieve, that it would be "dangerous" to put too much pressure on him, and that the teenager could only become "top" player a few years from now. This has been a recurring managerial philosophy at Chelsea, a club blessed with an insanely successful academy set up, but one with a ceiling made of inch-thick plate glass.

At Stamford Bridge and at away grounds, there only has to be mention of Hudson-Odoi's name over the tannoy, or a glimpse of him warming up for the Chelsea support to break into "Oh, Hudson-Odoi!", sung to the tune of Seven Nation Army. Like his elder teammate and fellow Chelsea Academy product, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, there is genuine excitement for the youngster. Of course, Sarri is right in that he has a lot of improvement ahead of him, but his pace and confidence is something that clearly Southgate wants to tap into. The prevailing Sarri mood, however, is still 'wait and see'. "He will be ready to be at the top at 22 or 23 years," the Chelsea head coach told the media after Chelsea's Europa League first leg tie with Dynamo Kiev, in which Hudson-Odoi came off the bench to score. "We need [him] to improve without the media, of the pressure of the media, fans, the club," conceding that "His training is really very good." But..."When you have pressure when you are 18 it is dangerous, you can lose the target. The target is to improve. So it is dangerous. This is why I don't like to speak about him."

And so Chelsea are left with a conundrum: develop an undoubted talent by giving him more game time (and higher wages), or let him go to Bayern Munich, as he has indicated he'd like to, to guarantee that game time. "Too much, too young", as The Specials sang, is a valid point, and I do have some sympathy for Sarri's view. But only some. As keeps coming up, in radio phone-ins and newspaper comment boxes, that old adage "if you're good enough, you're old enough" does count. Gareth Southgate might be even making a point to Chelsea's head coach that there is no time like the present. I certainly don't disagree.

They’re coming home...

Picture: Football Association

We may now be up to 52 years of hurt, but the pain has been considerably dulled. The editorial post-mortems will quite rightly ask questions of what happened to England after Kieran Trippier’s remarkable free kick put them ahead after five minutes; of why they seemed unable to maintain possession as Croatia gained confidence; of why they resorted to the long ball tactics we thought had been left behind when Sven-Goran Eriksson stood down after the 2006 World Cup; of why Dele Alli went missing and Harry Kane was largely anonymous. And, yes, some questions, too, about ‘Sir’ Gareth Southgate. But, perhaps, these inquisitions are for another day.

As everyone - from TV commentators to newspaper pundits to pub experts - has commented, England’s progress through the 2018 World Cup has been nothing short of incredible, and welcomely restorative at the same time. Cynics from other lands might say a little success has gone to our heads, but if these last four weeks have been intoxicated by unseasonably summery summer weather mixed with England winning games, then so be it. If nothing else, it’s given us a welcome diversion from all the other nonsense going on in the world.

We have become so used to doom and gloom around the England team, with dismal, premature exits from competitions, that for once, the national love-in with Southgate and his men has been entirely justified. The young England manager, himself, has cultivated this: in an age of hate and cynicism, fuelled by social media’s free-for-all and the notable loss of civility that appears to have been engendered by Brexit and Trump, Southgate’s manners, intelligence and dignity have been counter to the times. Even those who say “it’s all very well him being so polite, what about the performances?” will have to concede that it mostly went right. Which is much more than can be said for any of his recent predecessors. The waistcoat-and-tie smartness isn’t an act: when Southgate was appointed it was unfairly surmised that he was the last option left. The FA had run out of ‘exotic’ propositions like Capello or journeymen like Roy Hodgson and Sam ‘One Game’ Allardyce, and that appointing an FA insider like Southgate was the safest political option. Maybe it was, but didn’t it work out well?!

So what has made the difference between the abject departure to Iceland in 2016 and defeat to Croatia in 2018? Surely the core of the squad is the same? The difference is that the England in Russia this summer has been more cohesive and focused on the task. The universal decry after that Iceland game was that England were, essentially, eleven overpaid Premier League superstars doing whatever they thought their self-appointed talents should be applied to. This time, England have looked like a band of brothers which, surprisingly, has enabled them to largely avoid the petty tribalism of who they play for in their day jobs. True, this England squad has, perhaps, a disproportionate number of Spurs players, who have - let the records show - no silverware to show for their exalted status, but somehow even the most vehement anti-Tottenham fans have rallied around Harry Kane. Possibly not Dele Alli, though.

In fairness, this World Cup has been the making of some of these young England players. Jordan Pickford comes immediately to mind: relatively short for a goalkeeper, and not exactly from the ‘cool’ quadrant of the Premier League, he has demonstrated himself to be an impressively reactive stopper, not least of which in that penalty shootout. Harry Maguire, Kyle Walker and Jon Stones, too, have enhanced their reputations enormously, applying a three-man central defence model (for which Antonio Conte deserves some credit) that pushed into midfield with decisiveness. Raheem Stirling should also be mentioned here: still mystifyingly divisive amongst fans, his penetrative pace was one of the bright spots in England’s attack. Less so, Kane and Alli. The former was often poorly served in the open play which his reputation has been built at Tottenham (that he still leads the Golden Boot is mostly down to his impressive spot kick record). With Alli, who may have been carrying injury, he just seemed to be played too deep in some games, and was too standoff in others (especially last night), to make himself useful in front of goal. Tempting as it is to niggle further, I won’t. Because to do so would be to submit to the default behaviour we’ve all been guilty of down the years.

That we’re not all self-flagellating this morning in the usual fashion is testament to how England actually did. Defeat in a semi-final has been accepted by a glass half-full, that England only went out after 120 minutes and a single-goal margin. People are, thankfully, even prepared to ignore that England met their match against Croatia. I had been increasingly wound up by all the ‘football’s coming home’ hoopla, and commentators making ridiculous nudge-nudge, wink-wink remarks about 1966 and Sunday’s final before a tricky semi-final with Croatia had even kicked off. As much fun as the waistcoat-wearing national euphoria was, experience has taught us that you can be over-confident. ‘Pride before a fall’, as the adage goes. But all that aside - and I’m not seeking meagre gratification here - there is much to look forward to.

As The Times pointed out today in its daily World Cup supplement, youth is on England’s side for both the next European Championships and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The Under-19 pipeline is equally promising, and with Southgate’s experience from managing England’s youth set-up - effectively, into the senior team - for once we should not be pointing our eyes skyward at the thought of the next tournament being another pointless exercise. Contrary to the negative narrative going into this World Cup - both about the competition itself and England’s prospects - we have all emerged with a smile on our faces, and none of the usual caustic resentment. Ain’t that a breeze?

So, now that’s out of the way...

"Hard to believe it’s less than a fortnight until the headline 'Theresa May calls snap general election after England brings football home' is running on news websites," joked The Guardian's Jim Waterson last night on Twitter. Well, you wouldn't put it past her, such is the moribund state of her premiership and, moreover, such is the state of English euphoria after the national football team won its first penalty shootout in 22 years.

England's success in Moscow - a moral victory as much as an actual victory - is a big deal...even if it shouldn’t be. After all, England are just out of the Round of 16 and into only their fourth quarter-final since 1986. Such is the paucity of English success at World Cups and the Euros that we'll take rare success in the first knockout game as the confirming sign of changing fortunes. As premature as crowds blocking streets in Shoreditch, Croydon and elsewhere last night were in chanting "Football's coming home", you can't deny the need to celebrate, more out of relief than anything else.

However, to state the obvious, and whilst not wishing to rain on the parade (and at risk of being called a "waxwork" by Danny Baker for continuing to guard against getting carried away), we’re not done yet. Saturday's quarter-final against Sweden won't be the ordeal of cynical play as Colombia offered last night, but it will be robust. And here's why we need to be cautious: England were terrific last night in the first half, taking the game decisively to Colombia. They were particularly pleasing at the back, building through the middle and creating attacking momentum for Kane, Sterling and Alli in particular. But as the second half wore on, England once again started to be opened up. This was a trait of their first three games (even while drubbing Panama, they conceded late in the game), and continued last night when Yerry Mina equalised in the third minute of stoppage time. Do that again against Sweden, and another penalty shootout awaits.

Technically, England still have a lot to do to be regarded as a real threat in this World Cup. But before you react with accusations of treason, I do believe that momentum is carrying them on. Confidence is an unbelievable asset for this young team. Winning in regular time alone would have done the job to boost Gareth Southgate's players, but winning a penalty shootout - for so long the source of all our pain - will have washed through the England camp like a potion. On another day, Colombia would have won that shootout: on another day still, it could be England. Or Colombia again. Who knows. Penalties are a lottery, and that’s what makes them such an excruciating nightmare, but also wildly entertaining and still the only way to settle these fixtures if goals in open play can’t do it.

Much of why England are in this position is down to Southgate and his assistant Steve Holland, and their psychological management as much as their tactical nouse. Their calm, intelligent stewardship of England's young stars probably manifested itself most strongly in that penalty torture. Calm heads prevailed. Southgate, in particular, deserves credit for imparting his own torrid experience at Wembley in 1996. "We're trying to write our own history, and I've talked to the players about that. They write their own stories. We don't have to be bowed by the pressure of the past," he said, reflectively, after last night's result.

However, England do have to face the pressure of the future. The standard line is that they have to now focus on the next game, not dwell on the last (you know, "there are no easy games"). They may be two games from the final, but that next one will be every bit a test of this young England team. Sweden aren't in the quarter-final by default. I'm dancing on the head of a pin, I know. I'd love to gush with unconditional, just-because enthusiasm, but I'm just too paranoid. Remember Kevin Keegan, co-commentating for ITV in the 1998 World Cup when England played Romania in the group stage? "There's only one team that can win this now, and that's England," he told Brian Moore. Five minutes later, Dan Petrescu scored Romania's winner. These things are so easily jinxed.

Southgate's gamble on taking the route more favourable may, now, be seen to have paid off, but only so far. Sweden awaits and beyond that, potentially, Russia or Croatia. There are no easy games, but there's no harm enjoying the ride as we get through them.

*smug face

It’s not often I get to say this, but I was right. Yesterday I opined that England fans should not get carried away with thoughts of 1966 and all that after just two games of the 2018 World Cup, even if they were two wins out of two.

And thus it was proven in last night’s Group G tie between, effectively, the England and Belgium B-teams. It would be unfair to say Gareth Southgate’s players didn’t want to win it, but the eight changes he made removed much of the creativity that had made England's first two games such reasons for optimism. Not that we should now be instantly pessimistic, as some commentators appear to have lapsed back into, but there is no use ignoring that last night's somewhat dead rubber halted the momentum.

But, again, we're talking relatives. Belgium rested their best players, too, and clearly their indifference towards adding to the yellow card tally suggested that Roberto Martinez was also angling for a result that would see them take the path less troubling in the Round of 16. In a sense, Adnan Januzaj's stunning strike for Belgium was a setback, and Martinez's muted response said as much. What a strange game. And what a poor one, too. Arguably its most entertaining moment was Michy Batshuayi's celebration of the Belgium goal, in which he whacked the ball at an England goalpost only for it to comically rebound into his face. Typically, as football's funniest representative on Twitter, Batshuayi was wonderfully self-effacing online amid a torrent of trollery.

As for England, I'm still not fully decided as to whether Southgate's squad rotation was a good thing or a bad thing. On the plus side, his understudies gained valuable pitch time, and he saved any needless injuries or suspensions by resting his stars. On the downside, Southgate exposed the lack of real creative depth in his squad: most toiled without any noticeable impact up front; Rashford was only fitfully effective and Vardy largely redundant; even the impressive Loftus-Cheek faded from influence as the game wore on; 19-year-old Trent Alexander-Arnold showed remarkable maturity, but too much was placed on him to take set-pieces, where his delivery was poor.

At the end of the day, there were no real dramas, and it's hard to imagine that the 1-0 defeat will impact the high spirits in the England camp. And, yes, there is that group runners-up prize of, potentially, a more favourable route to the latter stages of the tournament. But even if coming second in Group G means that England have an extra day to prepare for their knockout game on Tuesday, they'll be playing a lively Colombia. Their form alone will pose a big question as to whether the England and Belgium managers' gamble was worth it. Progress past Japan on Monday will mean Belgium could, potentially, meet Brazil in the quarter-finals. A penny for your thoughts, Roberto?

Inevitably, sections of the press have laid into Southgate, such is the fickle nature of the British media. But then their argument is usually that they have to reflect their readership. The 'momentum' of success with England's first two games meant that pubs were full, the sun was shining and there was a feelgood factor in the air. People even forgot about world issues like Brexit and Trump for a few days. Good times. Again, though, perspective.

England's record at this World Cup has been played three, won two, lost one (in a game that arguably didn't matter). The team's chief scorer is still, currently, Golden Boot candidate. He'll want to maintain that status on Tuesday against Colombia, and those who were benched last night will, rather than being frustrated by England's apparent arrested development, will be champing at the bit to resume where they left off against Panama.

The intelligent, likeable Southgate has talked about long-term progress - not an ambitious tilt at the title - but the transformation of England from a bunch of overpaid egos into a world footballing side to be respected. That will take time, but you can't help feeling that, even if England go out to Colombia on Tuesday, progress will have been made. That might sound a little defeatist - of course I'd love England to go all the way - but their nadir, that awful game in Marseille against Iceland, isn't so distant in the mind that we can't extract a sense of where Southgate is having to come from. Like I said yesterday, no one should get carried away, and that means that what happened last night, and what will happen on Tuesday night and beyond, needs to be put into a broader context. That, in England terms, is a luxury, and one that Southgate should revel in.

World Cup fever? I'll put off going to the garden centre for now...

Press Association

Normally, in the run-up to a World Cup, I'd be in the throes of schoolboy giddiness. Wall charts obsessively studied, calendars blocked with every fixture, no matter what time the kick-off, and the sun and fresh air dutifully advised that, for the following few weeks, we'd be spending very little time together. But, until last Friday, the FIFA World Cup 2018 had generated little more than a "whatevs" from me. This was largely due to it being the FIFA World Cup, with all connotations of rum doings and brown envelopes, and secondly, because it was the World Cup in Russia, a country with hardly a great recent record of 'world in motion' inclusiveness.

But, then, Friday night came around and with it Portugal versus Spain (or, what has subsequently been revised to Ronaldo versus Spain), and all seemed to be right in the world. Since then we've seen Iceland hold out for a 1-1 draw with the mighty Argentina, replete with a Lionel Messi penalty miss, the Swiss holding Brazil and, even more stunningly, Mexico beating reigning world champions Germany. For those who couldn't care less about football or the World Cup, these results in just the opening weekend will mean little or matter less. But to some of us, they mean something, and this time, have momentarily obscured whatever it was that bred indifference on the run in.

That, though, is just football nerd talk. Tonight the reason 'most' of us in England watch the World Cup - England - means that working days are cut short, pubs are unusually full for a Monday, London taxis will be displaying the Cross of St. George without too much suggestion of distasteful nationalism, and even those who might otherwise show no interest at all in football, will be tuning in. For a brief moment, England's opening Group G match, against Tunisia, will create excitement, even hope. And an awful lot of cliches. There is some belief that Gareth Southgate, the England manager, is bringing a refreshing approach to the so-called "impossible job"; there is some latent belief that the England team's relative youthfulness will make a difference, not just tonight against Tunisia but all the way through into the knock-out stages. The truth is, we just don't know. No one does. As I often quote Danny Baker, "football is chaos".

With England today, as ever, we have to put prospects into context and balance. Yes, the squad is made up of Premier League players, and many drawn from Top Six teams. That surely counts for something. But our hubris at having a national side based around players from the most lucrative and watched domestic league in the world has led to too many false dawns before. England may well have been where association football began, and may, too, be where we've produced some high quality footballers ever since, but the thing we've never been able to grasp is that other countries have either produced better players, or have produced players that instinctively know how to win things - prettily or less so. Yes, England have suffered from poor refereeing decisions and have been unlucky in penalty shootouts, but those are the breaks. And penalties, whether regarded as a test of skill or not, are still just lotteries.

And, then, there's still 1966. To put England's one and only World Cup win into context, it was 52 years ago, just 21 years after the end of World War 2 (21 years ago to today, Labour won a general election landslide, the Princess of Wales died in a Paris car crash, Oasis released Be Here Now and Elton John was knighted. And these events all seem like yesterday). The point is that, apart from moments of joy in Italy in 1990 and the European Championships of 1996, England have been - like most participants in these competitions - a distinctly average team. Realistically, we've lacked true game changers, like France's Zidane in his day or Portugal's Ronaldo, still today. Yes, England have had and still have big-name, big-wage stars, but their profiles, wage packets and expensive choice of exotic car have rarely matched their delivery on the world stage, the international football pitch. That's not because they're bad players, or they've played for bad managers. They just haven't been as good as their opposition, and in some cases - South Africa in 2010 (including the worst game of football I've ever watched, England's 0-0 draw with Algeria) and that 2-1 defeat to Iceland in France two years ago - absolutely moribund.

But let's reflect a little. England are in this World Cup. Luminaries like Italy and The Netherlands are not. Each time England qualify for a tournament, they have done so on merit and at the cost of other equally worthy contenders. Tonight's opponents, Tunisia, may not exactly be a world beating force, but they qualified out of the African group - no easy task - and, despite not winning a World Cup fixture in 40 years, will be out to frustrate England. Southgate's youngsters will disregard them at their peril. Group G - which includes Belgium and Panama - is not going to be easy, but at risk of trotting out the 'there are no easy games' trope, there are...er...no easy games at the World Cup. Why should there be? True, some teams seem to be more likely to proceed than others, but as this weekend's opening games have proven, there are no rules as to who performs and who performs well.

So, strap in, order the pizza, take the phone off the hook and crack open the first beer. We've been there before, we'll be there again. Enjoy the ride, whether successful or a disappointment. This is still the World Cup, even with the slightly bitter taste of how it ended up being staged in Russia, even with England's history of failure and frustration. Someone has to win, someone had to lose. It wouldn't be football if it was pre-ordained.

Quelle surprise

I'm sure a good psycho-analysis expert can explain that common theme in people's dreams, when they're running to escape something and but can't seem able to get ahead of it. As a child I used to have a dream in which I was being chased down by an object which resembled a giant kneecap, much like that enormous round boulder that tumbled after Indiana Jones (or, in the form of Homer Simpson, down the stairs after Bart).

The only reason I bring this up is that I currently have the same sense of weak-legged uselessness by the current state of the world, especially the encroaching political and social divisions in my home country and in the US, where the needs of certain individuals to satisfy their ambitions are running roughshod over decency and respect.

But in a somewhat lesser ranking, global importance-wise, I also feel frustrated by yet another woeful England performance at an international football tournament. The ignominy of England going out of Euro 2016 to Iceland compounds a four-day period in which the UK chose to leave the EU, it's prime minister resigned (and in the process triggered a contest amongst people like the gormless Jeremy Hunt who have precious little to offer the post other than "that job looks a lark, I might give it a go”), and Her Majesty's Opposition began collapsing faster than a house of cards in a tornado thanks to a well-meaning and well-principled but lukewarm leader. But enough of all that. The less pressing, but more acutely annoying boil du jour in need of lancing is that of England (the football team, not the increasingly isolated corner of the former Great Britain).

No one went into Euro 2016 with much expectation about England's prospects, but there was at least a modicum of excitement about the attacking options at Roy Hodgson's disposal - the it-shouldn't-work-but-it-does goal prowess of Jamie Vardy, Harry Kane's prolific season with Tottenham, Daniel Sturridge's return to hunger, the mercurial Raheem Stirling and even the untried but exciting prospect of Marcus Rashford. But there were also the same-old, same-old problems of midfield cohesiveness and the even bigger lack of real strength in defence.

We can analyse these points to death, of course, but the frustration we're all left with is that surely there was enough in the 23-man Hodgson took to squad to France that would have had some fighting chance of progress? But, no. A promising first half against Russia on the opening weekend was undermined by a dozy second half (and not helped by the savage hooliganism in and around Nice's Stade Vélodrome). A spirited win over Wales reminded us that luck can work for you at these competitions, but then it was back to usual against Slovakia with a forgettable 0-0 draw. And thus England just about progressed into the knockout stage, with little to be really proud of but, progress is progress, and bring on Iceland and a slew of corny jokes about Kerry Katona and Bejam supermarkets.

When I first took up blogging six years ago, almost to the day, it was to vent a considerable amount of froth at England's ejection from the World Cup in South Africa. Apart from a very valid complaint about a disallowed Frank Lampard goal against - guess who? - Germany, much of my fizzing was about the ever-present hubris that has followed England into these tournaments, pretty much ever since the penultimate day of July 1966. It's that sense of entitlement - because England invented association football, because it created the first national team, because it hosts the world's most lucrative domestic league, because it used to be the seat of an empire, and because England won the World Cup once in the competition's 86-year history. No wonder our soon-to-be former EU partners can't wait to see the back of us...

This time around the expectation may have been worse: a squad comprised of players like Kane and Vardy, who'd enjoyed remarkable domestic seasons, on top of a ten-out-of-ten record in England's somewhat soft qualifying group for Euro 2016 gave false hope. And with this Roy Hodgson, a decent enough journeyman of a manager, masked his inadequacies in being able to make the right decisions at this level.

Hodgson did the decent thing by resigning on the spot after last night's defeat to Iceland. The FA even dragged him back to face the press today, though it's hard to tell what they intended to achieve. "I don't really know what I'm doing here," he told reporters in his first answer, "but I was told it's important for me to appear as everyone is still smarting". On reflection, we didn't know what he was doing in France either. Certainly not adhering to the sporting adage about playing to your strengths, which he didn't with dozy substitutions and starting line-ups that undermined the entire 90 minutes' performance.

As for the "everyone still smarting", that will probably include Danny Baker, who launched into a Krakatoan tirade on Twitter during the Iceland game and was still going when I went to bed. Already flaming the dreary statements-of-the-obvious of ITV commentator Glenn Hoddle (sample: "Oh we are getting Glenn Hoddle's reaction now. Next up the reaction of a paving stone in Blackpool."), Baker went into a fury of tweets - almost all unrepeatable - about the state of England, its manager and the motiviation of its players, including "I simply do not buy that footballers feel bad after game like that when they will be back on £200k in a few weeks. Its impossible."

While it is right for Hodgson to take responsibility - and some blame - for England's performance, the players will need to take a long hard look at theselves. Baker, again: "Absolutely disgraceful, #England. You useless over paid, over indulged mollycoddled shits. You are beyond shame. Disgrace to working people" and even ex-England forward Chris Waddle on BBC Radio 5 Live: "We haven't got leaders. They're all pampered, they're all [listening to] headphones and you can't get anything out of them."

And there lies the real rub. An England squad populated by some of the highest paid young men on the planet, with a manager earning a salary of £3.5 million a year, who went about Iceland with a patent lack of respect that came back to bite them on the arse. It was plain for all to see. I've seen it at Chelsea, when lower-tier cup opposition comes along, and the arriviste millionaires in blue play with such palpable disdain you almost end up willing them to lose, not that, on last season's evidence, that would deliver the slap to the chops that was warranted.

Iceland may have been a team drawn from a national population of just 330,000, but they played with determination, discipline and a complete absence of fear when hitting England on the break. And look what happened when they did. But why should they have fear at all? Only in England do we have this view that our footballers are rarified beings, that somehow these young men have ascended the rest of us, simply because they are in their early 20s and driving cars that you or I wouldn't ever be able to afford in a lifetime. That's not a statement of material envy, but a reflection on how England's so-called elite managed to look worse than average against a team managed by a part-time dentist, who took the game to England and were rewarded for it.

So, the inevitable: what next? I've been here before. You've been here before. We've all been here before. We've tried different managers, different nationalities of managers, different coaching combinations, different 'grass roots' initiatives, you name it, England and the English FA have tried it to no avail. This lack of a plan is also informing the suggestions coming forth for Hodgson's replacement. It's a list that includes both the obvious and the just-thought-of random: Gareth Southgate (because he coached the Under 21s so...er...it's his turn); Alan Pardew (because it's his turn to); Steve Bruce (because he may be available); Arsène Wenger (because some people don't really take these things seriously).

Whoever gets the job - and I think I'm even on the list, given the number of possibilities so far explored - the one quality I implore them to apply to their charges is a little humility. England needs a manager prepared to tell the players "Look lads, face facts. They're just as good as you. They may not walk into games clutching their Louis Vuitton washbags like you, with an army of flunkies carrying their luggage for them, as yours do, but they'll match you out there, player for player. What's going to be your reaction to that?". Because up until now, I've not seen much evidence of any of that.