AS DUTCH BODIES skittled over to soak in their sudden despair and England’s rollicked about in their shock glory, Gareth Southgate strode slowly onto the pitch, embraced Ronald Koeman, shook hands with a skedaddling referee and then felt the sweet, sweet tase of vindication.
He diplomatically shook hands and offered consolations and once the English players had finished their celebrations in front of the travelling fans, Southgate stepped into the limelight, screamed, pumped his fists gestured as if to say ONE MORE, and then immediately comported himself as if snapping to after a spasm. It was a moment to sum up Southgate’s sheer emotional control.
And though it may not be wildly popular nor apparently any good, the Southgate Doctrine has sent England to a second-straight Euros final and a first major final played outside of England.
In the first-half of this adrenal, elastic game in Dortmund, England played their best football of the tournament and were both lucky to be level through a contentious penalty and unfortunate not to be ahead.
Perhaps Southgate was spooked by England’s fragility on the counter-attack, as after the break his team looked more like their recognisable selves, spending long spells of the game simply Not Playing Football. But then his infamously belated substitutions delivered Sunday’s shot of glory against Spain: Cole Palmer rolled the ball down the side of the Dutch defence for Ollie Watkins, whose touch, swivel and shot into the bottom corner was a stunning mix of power, precision and sheer bloody mindedness. Not unlike actually, Jude Bellingham’s equaliser against Slovakia. Or Bukayo Saka’s against Switzerland.
It’s a caustic kind of heartbreak for the Netherlands, who at least deserved to reach extra-time. They will spend the coming weeks wallowing in a deep fury toward the German referee Felix Zwayer. Zwayer’s 2005 ban for match-fixing was exhumed by the English press in the days before the semi-final, but Uefa stood by the man they needlessly appointed. Perhaps he was swayed by the pressure, as he gave a series of marginal calls England’s way, infuriating the Dutch.
England’s penalty to level the game was another match-defining act by a fastidious VAR. Harry Kane volleyed the box and followed through to kick Denzel Dumfries’ dangling studs, which the VAR deemed were in a “reckless” position. Perhaps that’s true, but Dumfries also hardly moved his leg. In shooting over the bar, Kane created the contact. Hence why it seems so brutally harsh to punish the defender.
Southgate stuck with his back three from the quarter-final, with Kieran Trippier again playing on his unnatural left-hand side. His job in an attacking sense is simply to stand out by the touchline like a very intense bollard, and England’s ambition is measured by how far up that touchline he is standing.
The fact Trippier was caught offside twice in the opening 12 minutes was testament to the fact that this was England with the shackles off. This is probably Southgate’s final tournament in charge, and so he decided to go down in a glorious hail of bullets.
Guys, all that stuff we had on the flipchart about balance and maintaining defensive cover and general good, British common sense? Yeah, forget about all that.
Southgate didn’t so much as arrange his team as stack it, its right side resembling one groaning jenga tower of attacking technicians. The result was Kobbie Mainoo, Bukayo Saka, and Phil Foden standing close together, sashaying about in a triangle forever expanding, contracting, and spinning around. The Dutch, starting here with their second-choice midfield given Frenkie De Jong, Marten de Roon, and Teun Koopmeiners are all injured, were left suffering vertigo.
Foden was particularly mesmeric, chest puffed out and mouth hanging open, presumably in anticipation of whatever he was going to sprinkle across the game next.
But the trade-off to this outlaw attacking abandon was a vulnerability on the counter-attack, and the game was only seven minutes old when Little Xavi Simons brushed aside England’s great lion, Declan Rice, and then slashed an vicious shot into the top corner.
England, though, responded with their best football of the tournament, with the Dutch first passive and then bedraggled by Foden and co. They needed the penalty to equalise but Dumfries then did superbly to recover and clear Foden’s precise shot off the line.
The Dutch needed half-time and Ronald Koeman adapted by sending for The Big Man. On came Wout Weghost and his team-mates suddenly grew less passive and pushed higher up the pitch, perhaps proving that Weghorst does indeed have his own gravitational pull. He pinned England’s centre-backs and the Dutch began gouging out chances, with Pickford doing superbly to push away Virgil Van Dijk’s volley from a wide free-kick.
With England now fading back to the near non-entitites they were in the group stage, Southgate grew surprisingly ruthless. As a VAR check confirmed that a Saka goal was indeed offside, Foden and Kane made way for Palmer and Bellingham. There was nothing in the endgame that suggested Watkins’ winner was on its way until the moment it skidded into the Dutch net.
That’s the bounty from England’s mix of individual quality with genuine character: they have now scored in the final minute of their last-16 and semi-final ties, and have come from behind to win them all.
Spain will be the best opponent they have faced thus far, but given the sheer number of improbabilities that have stacked up for England at this point, dare you call this destiny?
