Email Tim
A young, mixed-race England team have just been runners-up in a major footballing tournament. This ought to be a cause for celebration. However, many of the takeaway headlines from a negatively- focused media have been on the apparent racism and bad behaviour of some fans.
It’s certainly true that England have historically under-performed at major tournaments. We usually qualify, and have done so for every World Cup but one from 1982 onwards (9 out of 10) and every Euros but one from 1988 onwards (8 out of 9).
Readers may remember the 2 exceptions:
£ USA 1994: an infamous qualifying campaign under Graham “do I not like that” Taylor. We finished behind Holland and Norway, and conceded a goal against San Marino after 9 seconds.
£ Euro 2008: we “only needed a draw” from our final game against Croatia at Wembley, but lost 3-2 after a goal-keeping howler as “the wally with the brolly” looked on in the pouring rain.
However, the 15 tournaments from 1982 to 2016 yielded only 2 semi-finals (Italia 90 and Euro 96). Frustratingly, many exits were on penalties. By my count, we’ve lost 7 out of 9 such shoot-outs (the 2 exceptions being against Spain in Euro 96 and Colombia in 2018).
Now, we’ve had a World Cup semi-final and a Euro runners-up slot in succession. Things are in danger of looking up.
The World Cup is next year and we already head our qualifying group with 3 wins out of 3- we even have San Marino again! The team is relatively young and inexperienced, and this showed against the more experienced Italian team on Sunday (who played the better football). It’s a squad of perseverance and character, seemingly without any big disruptive egos. Many of them come from less advantaged backgrounds. Kalvin Phillips mother worked 2 jobs while his father was in jail. Raheem Sterling took 3 buses to get to training.
It’s a squad with much promise, but they weren’t quite ready to win a major yet. The England rugby team that won the 2003 World Cup had several near misses first.
I won’t stick my neck out and say we’ll win the World Cup in Qatar, but reaching the latter stages should now be a minimum expectation. England are ranked 4th by FIFA (behind Belgium, France and Brazil) and if we qualify for Qatar we’d have a good chance of being in Pot 1 for the draw.
Southgate is a good manager and has filled the shoes of the biggest job in the country, after the Queen and Prime Minister, well. Every bloke in every pub up and down the country has a view on the team, or penalty takers, he should have picked. Let us hope he’s the manager that takes England to Qatar.
A good account of a much more professional England and FA set-up, including the St Georges Park centre opened in 2012 is here:
https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/england-euro-2020-final-major-tournament-success-1098035
Over the years we’ve had a bit of an on/off and love/hate relationship with our football team. We’re used to the disappointment, it’s the hope that gets us! In the end, it comes down to what, or who, you think is most important and where you look- or rely on- for meaning, comfort and purpose in life. As a believing Christian, I have to say it can’t be found in any sport (tho there are many positive life lessons to be learned within sport).
On racism and hooliganism, we can’t let a tiny minority of morons set the theme for who we are. Let the Police take action where needed, for example many of those trying to break into Wembley without tickets had their faces clearly visible. They didn’t even have the gumption to put a mask on! Racist abuse is never acceptable. Sadly, social media is a bit of a cess-pit even at the best of times.
Qualifying games for the World Cup start again in September. Scotland would seem to have a good chance of doing well in their group. Wales did well to qualify for Euro 21 and it's only a shame that N.Ireland couldn't join us to make it 4 out of 4.
So keep watching and supporting, you never know!
