MY WORD OF the European Championship group stage is – and hang on to your hats here folks - balance.
The best teams of the tournament so far have been the most balanced and Spain have been the highest expression of equilibrium, to the point it’s actually enjoyable just to list their team.
They have a right-footer and left-footer at centre-back and in midfield; a right-footed right-back and a left-footed left-back; a right-footed attacker on the left-wing and a left-footed attacker on the right wing; an ambidextrous genius at number 10 and a big man up top.
Spain were the only team to win all their group games and they’ve yet to concede a goal, all the while looking more thrilling than their tiki-taka forefathers. The group stage has groaned beneath the weight of great emotion but Nico Williams and Lamine Yamal’s twin torturing of Italy’s full-backs was the best purely football moment of the tournament so far.
Julian Nagelsmann – a man of such tactical sophistication he has called for players to be mic’d up to coaches to receive tactical instruction – said ahead of the tournament that “simplicity” would be Germany’s friend. They have achieved exactly that, as Nagelsmann has done the simple trick of putting all of his best players in their best positions. Hence there has been a national phenomenon of Wirtziala, while he has unlocked the Manchester City version of Ilkay Gundogan, an early contender for the player of the tournament.
Balance is precisely what Gareth Southgate has sacrificed in his baffling about-turn with England. Southgate was once England’s last technocrat, but now he has tossed out his carefully-built compromise and consensus to fall in thrall to a few charismatic superstars.
Southgate has made like Keir Starmer in lopping off his left-wing in pursuit of success, as he continues to Wait for Luke Shaw and Indulge Phil and Jude. They may be caught out by a better side but, lo and behold, England have once again found themselves on the softer side of an imbalanced draw.
They will play Slovakia in the last-16 and cannot face any of Portugal, France, Spain, or Germany until the final.
Noted podcaster Gary Lineker, meanwhile, has been freed from the shackles of BBC balance. His off-hand but nonetheless credible and accurate description of England’s performance as “shit” has caused hysteria in the parts of the English press who like nothing more than to be able to write stories about Gary Lineker. The Telegraph are portraying Lineker as England’s answer to Howard Stern.
More startling is how outraged the England players have been by the criticism, who all seem of a view that Lineker and pals should be supporting them. Southgate is obsessing over the criticism, describing with horror the lead-in to the final group game against Slovenia as reminding him of his playing days. “Over the last six or seven years we have made England fun again for the players”, said Southgate, “we must not lose that.”
Southgate himself is martyring himself in front of fans, saying he would never “back down” from approaching supporters after a game, as it would be hypocritical as he’s asking his players to be “fearless.”
At no point has Southgate admitted that the criticism is coming not from some dark tendency in the soul of English football but instead over his team’s miserable and muddled performances. England can only win this tournament when they stop wallowing in their delusions.
A few England fans hurled plastic beer cups at Southgate after the Slovenia game, where others have tossed them in joy. The press boxes in Dortmund and Leipzig are in the lower tiers of the stand which gives a great vantage point that has the trade-off of leaving journalist’s heads and, more importantly, their laptop screens vulnerable to a hail of sudsy hard plastic.
Meanwhile, France continue to search for their right balance, and messed up in not beating Poland to top their group. Mbappe has slowly drifted into a number nine position – perhaps in anticipation of his upcoming role at Real Madrid – but France look better when he plays out on the left, meaning Didier Deschamps may have a tough conversation ahead with his captain. The fact Cristiano Ronaldo is the only outfield player to have started all of Portugal’s games is a sign Roberto Martinez hasn’t had a similar chat with his. The conversation will therefore abide as to whether Portugal would be a better, more balanced side if their striker worked for them, rather than the other way round.
Ralf Rangnick’s Red Bull Austria have been the tournament’s revelation, drawing on their collective memory at Red Bull clubs in Salzburg and Leipzig to play the kind of intense, coherent pressing game that is de rigueur at club level but a high tariff act of levelling the playing field in the international game.
The reason we praise balanced teams is because they can unleash a great storm of chaotic emotion. Georgia have been the latest nation to become caught in this great torrent, Willy Sagnol providing the platform from which Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Georges Mikautadze can bloom. Last-16 qualification in Georgia’s tournament debut is the kind of achievement that will take Sagnol out of the FAI’s budget, but hey, you can’t fault their identification qualities, at least.
This has been another Euros to blossom in spite of its pig of a format. Sending four of the six third-placed sides through means every group becomes relevant to any single team’s fate. This means an asymmetry of knowledge and gives the teams playing at the end of the group stage an advantage of knowing what they need to qualify. That fundamental unfairness did not come to bear in the end, but it is only a matter of time before it does. An expansion to 32 teams would dilute the tournament’s quality but is now necessary, assuming reverting to 16 teams is no longer palatable.
And the tournament also manages to thrive in spite of Germany’s dysfunctional train network. Their buckling beneath the weight of football fans this month is a result of the wrong kind of balancing: Germany refuses to rack up a budget deficit, and the cost of that has been an endless national angst among the people relying on an under-funded train network.
Another reminder that politicians really have little to learn from football.
