Football News: Is The England National Team Playing a Better Brand of Football?
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My interest in the England national football side had all but diminished prior to Friday's performance against the Netherlands. It's hard to carry hope forward when the so called golden generation of players would continually qualify comfortably for tournaments, only to then turn up and drastically underperform with everything from fatigue, secret injury, coaching, language barriers, passion, formation, WAGs and so on all blamed.
Whatever the cause(s) the reality is that since Euro 96, the national team has really struggled to look anywhere near good enough to win something. Also, if we remove the rose-tinted specs for a second and look back at Euro 96, we played well against the Netherlands but required a lot of luck to get passed Spain into the semis. There, we played with effort and endeavour but lost out on penalties to Germany who went on to win the tournament.
The continued motif has been that the team seems to raise its game and generally play well against the big teams in the competition, whilst struggling to break down so called weaker opposition. Again, if we were to look at this objectively, its most likely the case that against the big teams, rather than raising our game, we more often than not play defensively and make ourselves hard to break down whilst hoping to score on the counter or from a set piece, just like weaker nations do against us.
I think that's probably why the 4-1 win against the Netherlands in Euro 96 and the 5-1 against Germany in 2001 in qualifying for the 2002 World Cup, stick in the mind so vividly. We actually took on teams that were of a similar level, or perhaps considered superior, and came out victorious. It's a shame that we were unable to build on those performances or use them as a blue print of how to move the team forward in the tournaments that followed. Whilst we were knocked out at the Quarter-Final stage of that World Cup by Brazil, Germany made it all the way to the final.
The best the golden generation could achieve was a Quarter Final place. We then failed to qualify for Euro 2008, made the round of 16 in 2010, Quarters in 2012, failed to qualify from our group in 2014 and Euro 2016 will surely remain fresh enough in everyone's mind. So, we are the perennial under-achievers who, following the retirement of the golden generation have been left with a bronze generation of good but not great footballers who aren't expected to achieve a great deal in their time in the national team.
But despite Gareth Southgate's appointment in 2016 being an underwhelming one for many, me included, 2017 did bring unexpected hope in the form of the national youth sides. World Champions at under 17 and under 20 levels. We just need to wait a few years for these players to get to senior squad age and keep our fingers crossed they will get first team experience either in the premier league or at a good European side with the best coaching they can find.
Whilst our youth teams were winning, the England senior side has once again qualified for this World Cup with comfort but no performances that really inspired anybody. Southgate started with the usual rhetoric of picking players on form, not reputation and whilst he has included a few new names in the mix, the team has largely been workman like, offering little to get excited about. This has largely been seen as a result of this bronze generation of personnel available, but Friday's game against the Netherlands offered a glimpse of something very different. Something we as England fans have not witnessed for something like 16 years. A performance both exciting and inspiring.
Before I get carried away, I must put the result and performance in context. We played a Netherlands side that has been struggling for several years and has failed to qualify for another international tournament. It was also quite a young dutch side. But, it was the most exciting England performance I can recall since that 2001 win against Germany. No the opposition was not quite the same, nor the scoreline, but this was a young team of England players, playing in a fluid formation with confidence, invention and accuracy for the most part. We played the ball out from the back and built attacks from there.
Gone was the usual England style of panicking under pressure and hoofing the ball up the other end of the pitch. Gone was the static, rigid positioning of players making us easy to mark and passes all too easy to read and intercept. There was motion and dynamism to our play and our passing was intricate and one and two touch at times, reminiscent of the best Premier League sides. It was a breath of fresh air.
We perhaps did not have the right personnel in every position to execute their roles perfectly and there were enough errors that would likely see us beaten by a better side, but I really didn't care because England's performance was entertaining, enjoyable, we won and it gave me, for the first time in many years, a good reason to want to watch Tuesday's game against Italy. Could it be that playing this way, Southgate can build a team that is stronger than the sum of its parts and do unexpected things?
I'm not expecting to see the same starting 11, nor the same type of performance on Tuesday. I hope we try to play that way, but my fear is we will revert to type and play more conservative football against a stronger Italian side. I've learned hope is a thankless thing when it comes to England's national side. But Gareth Southgate now has a brave decision to make. Does he take an England side to the World Cup, this bronze generation, and ask only of a workman like performance that may see us out of the group stage but perhaps no further than the round of 16, or does he tear up the script and ask his England side to go and play their forthcoming games the way they did against the Netherlands?
Tuesday night will likely give us a better idea of the answer, but after so many years of dull performances that have added up to very little, I have my fingers crossed that we'll instead try to play this new brand of stylish, dynamic football with a view to carrying that forward, irrespective of our results at the World Cup. We're not expected to go far, so why not go out playing a better brand of football, giving these players vital experience of top-level tournament football playing this way and use it as a blue print for Euro 2020? Give the England fans and players something to feel excited about again. Boy do we need it.
Written by figodasilva March 26 2018 13:55:05
