THE SCOTTISH WRITER Andrew O’Hagan once wrote of the English people as being very different to the Scottish and Irish communities he knew, describing them as “a riot of individualism with no real sense of common purpose and no collective volition as a tribe.”
Gareth Southgate has addressed half of that sentence at these Euros, and has united England’s players into a common purpose. This is an England team who want to be here and who want to play and win for their manager.
It’s an admirable achievement, given previous generations have spoken about going away with England as being about as enjoyable as a root canal. They went to tournaments crouched away from a vituperative media, with the atmosphere fractured by the warring republics of club rivalries and endangered egos.
Southgate has got rid of all of that, but has pragmatically indulged another riot of individualism. Think Jude Bellingham’s last-second overhead equaliser against Slovakia; Bukayo Saka’s redemption arc against Switzerland; Ollie Watkins late winner against the Dutch. England’s journey to tonight’s final in Berlin has an epic, quixotic quality. They have gone behind in all of their knockout games and yet they are among the final two still standing.
And they have done so by playing well for about 30 minutes. You get the sense that England have been betrothed to crazy destiny from the moment they landed in Germany. Because how else to explain how a team that has played so badly for so much of the tournament has made its final? England fans are singing Southgate’s name around the streets of Berlin now, but they were tossing beer cups at him a fortnight ago.
The group stage was a dreary mess, with Southgate fiddling about for a midfield partner to Declan Rice and admitting he was “experimenting.” Alighting on Kobbie Mainoo improved things a tad, but England were still dreadful in the last-16 win over Slovakia. The shift to a back three brought some improvement against Switzerland but again they didn’t have a shot on target until they scored, while the electric reaction to falling behind against the Netherlands was followed by another passive second half.
So if England were playing club football, you would say these performances are unsustainable. The sheer number of games would tame the magic and eventually balance out stuff like luck and individualism. But this is not the club game, and it needs only to be sustained for another couple of hours at the most.
But for once at this tournament England’s biggest problem can be said to be the opposition. England were rewarded for topping their group by landing in the easy side of the draw: Southgate bridles at the suggestion but it is undoubtedly true.
Spain, by contrast, topped their much more difficult group – featuring Italy, Croatia, and Albania – and were given a dubious prize. First Georgia, then hosts Germany, and then France, the dominant international team of this era. And yet they’ve beaten them all without once needing recourse to penalties.
Spain have won every game, scored more goals than anyone else, and come through a brutally difficult path to Berlin. They are clearly the best side at the tournament and all logic and evidence dictates that they will win tonight. But England haven’t been trading in logic since they got here.
In a tournament that has had a couple too many grey knockout occasions, Spain have splashed the whole place in joy. Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams have done so most obviously: they are young enough not to have been ground down to exhaustion by the Football Industrial Complex.
England’s back three system might need some adjustments, as they don’t want to waste Saka’s attacking invention by having him put in check by Williams. Kyle Walker still has the pace to win a one v one battle so he will likely marshal Williams, while Kieran Trippier’s defensive strengths will be useful against Yamal.
But the wide players are often just a means to an end for Spain: by drawing markers toward them, they create space in-field for Fabian Ruiz and the outstanding Dani Olmo. If England are to win, Declan Rice has to have his best game of the tournament while Southgate may be tempted to veer on the side of conservatism and swap Mainoo for Conor Gallagher.
England’s hopes of winning are also predicated on getting the ball off Rodri, which is easier said than done. Still, they have tangible reasons for optimism. Saka has been their best attacker and he will face Marc Cucurella, the weakest element of the Spanish defence. England also have far superior depth, and while Harry Kane will start, Southgate can completely change the game from the bench: they can go long and play off Ivan Toney or send Ollie Watkins in behind.
England may also need to conquer their enduring weakness, and keep on playing regardless of the score. They scored early in the last final at Wembley and slowly withdrew to the point of playing for penalties, and they have been unable to put their foot on an opponent’s throat at this tournament. It’s not a coincidence that their best football came once they fell behind to the Netherlands.
Spain did the same against Germany in the quarter-finals, but they managed the victory over France much better. But it’s easier for Spain to do this because they have Rodri in midfield, who alone can decide the tempo of a game. England, for all of Rice’s qualities, do not have an equivalent type of player.
What England do have is the experience of the previous final and an overwhelming and virtuous sense of destiny. But Spain have been so good in the tournament thus far they may just trample all over England’s embrace of fate.
Prediction: Spain 2-1 England
On TV: RTÉ, BBC, and ITV; KO: 8pm
