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

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?