It’s the second half of overtime now, and the game has gone on for about 107 minutes. It could be two minutes, or it could be four months. It’s hard to say. Eberechi Eze, now England’s left wing-back, came out of the box under pressure and fired a long, hopeful, desperate shot down the left wing.
Harry Kane was desperate for his 26th touch of the night, which he duly chased down. With the angle against him and no team-mates nearby, Manuel Akanji’s shoulder blades were breathing, but Kane managed to keep the ball under control. Crossing the touchline, he stood up and headed straight into the England dugout, where he was surrounded by Gareth Southgate.
For Southgate, who is coaching his 100th game for England, it feels like a quietly symbolic moment. Perhaps the underlying theme of his eight-year reign was the quest for control. Control the environment, control the ball, control the midfield, and control the information. Mastery of small details.
But of course, time has loosened his reins a little. Horrible noises had begun leaking in through the windows. Now England are essentially reduced to a rolling maelstrom of noise, steam, smoke, inertia, podcast fury and the imaginary ball of Jude Bellingham. In a way, this is the logical endpoint. With Bukayo Saka at right-back, England appear to be playing an asymmetrical 5-1-1-2-1 formation, with Southgate’s captain simply coddled in his lap .
You can adopt your plans and programs. You can put your non-negotiable selection rules, all the stats, all the film, all the years spent on the M62 and look at players who will never succeed. Perhaps, in the end, everything is in vain. Since England are in the semi-finals of Euro 2024, this doesn’t really mean anything.
A typical scenario: you have finally confirmed your audition for the Manchester United job and they have given Erik ten Hag a new contract. It was yet another late performance, fraught with flaws and drama, delivered by a team completely out of touch with the public and themselves. It was probably England’s best performance of this World Cup, but you’d still hardly call it progress.
This sophisticated machine, which took eight years to build, had completely disintegrated. This team may not be Southgate’s team after next week, and to some extent it’s hardly his team now: just a collection of scraps and vibes. And – plot twist – the sequences and atmosphere are brilliant.
Match summary: England struggled for about 90 minutes and looked good for about 30 minutes on eight separate occasions, with Saka shooting from the edge of the area, Jordan Pickford saving a penalty and Souths Gate has now reached the semi-finals of the tournament – the final as many as all his predecessors combined. Don’t try to find patterns. none. The fundamental truth of football is that outstanding individuals doing outrageous things are not the foundation of a team. The truth about the origins of international tournaments is that once in a while it doesn’t matter.
You can see this in the new hybrid formations. Four in the backline. The three people behind continued to move forward. But there were times when England inexplicably decided to slow down and let Switzerland attack them with nine players in the back row. Kieran Trippier has been rewarded for his lethal attacking threat on the left by being promoted to a more advanced position on the left.
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Of course, it wouldn’t last long and after a long period of pressure, the high press grabbed England like a claw and Switzerland scored. Murat Yakin, the coach who still has a real plan, pushed Dan Ndoye further and it was his cross that was met by Breel Embolo ) bundled together, pushing England to the brink again. The first 75 minutes of this game passed in a numbing blur.
So, Gareth. About that handbrake. Kudos to Southgate for not thinking twice. He didn’t even give me five minutes. He doesn’t adjust it. He tore it to pieces. Enter Cole Palmer. Eds appears. Luke Shaw appears. England were finally threatening on the left, and since football is a fluid game full of subtle changes and butterfly effects, the breakthrough came from the right. Declan Rice fired a decoy dart into the right channel. Saka finally got a stretched defense and a bit of space to take away his flower.
Sarkar is here. Bellingham vs Slovakia. The inevitable penalty shootout. Perhaps the reason England are so reliably resurrected in these last-chance moments is that this is a team that has largely collapsed, playing to their primal instincts, a team that needs to feel the chill of death in its arse, red Warn yourself of tomorrow’s push notification spot to nudge yourself into action. It won’t last because you need some kind of strategy. But these are talented footballers, and sometimes talented footballers do talented things.
Things fell apart. The center no longer holds. After eight years of careful tuning, the majestic order of Gareth Peak was suddenly gone and would not return. Three days of training won’t solve the problem. Adam Walton isn’t going to solve this problem. Chaos has brought England to this point. Only chaos can get them through the next days.
