The problems in the past with the England football team have been multiple, complex and deep-rooted. Watching the recent BBC documentary entitled “Managing England: The Impossible Job” truly brought home just how toxic the role of national team Coach had become. Some were unfairly criticised, others simply incompetent, but the newspapers picked up on every single flaw of those in charge, whether that have been Glenn Hoddle’s faith healer, Sven-Göran Eriksson’s affairs or the “Wally with the Brolly” Steve McClaren.
For all the promise, the high moments and the star players to have graced the side, a never-ending merry-go-round of expectation and negativity has crushed the life out of whoever has tried to repeat the triumphs of 1966. Failure to recapture that glory was analysed over and over, and that only served to increase the sense that history would continually repeat itself every two years.
No-one knows how that culture of blame works better than current boss Gareth Southgate.
At the time, it seemed like an England win at Euro ‘96 was meant to be. Playing at home, exactly 30 years from that famous World Cup triumph, Terry Venables’ side were genuinely good enough to have gone all the way. Yet when they crashed out in the semi-final there inevitably had to be a fall-guy, and that was of course Southgate, whose weak spot-kick meant that the Three Lions lost in the penalty shoot-out against Germany.
What happened afterwards was enough to destroy many men, but Southgate continued with his career in a typically quiet and professional manner. Many groaned when he was announced as successor to Sam Allardyce, the new man’s name unfairly having become synonymous with failure and mediocrity as he was unable to shake off the weight of the nation’s disappointment that football didn’t “come home” back in 1996.
Even skipping over the Allardyce saga, Southgate had inherited a side that had already hit rock bottom after dreadful performances in both World Cup 2014 and Euro 2016. Those came under Roy Hodgson, yet another man who failed to deliver and was considered fair game for endless abuse from the newspapers. However, the fact that things couldn’t really get any worse for England is something that has somehow worked in favour of the new Coach, as he has scooped them up off the ground and embarked on a journey to turn things around.
This job seems ideal for the 47-year-old, as – much like the national team – he too had to walk down that road to rebuild himself, and it seems that he has come out of it infinitely stronger. As a player, Southgate was always one that seemed intelligent, thoughtful and astute, but in his new role as England boss he is also displaying a fierce yet articulate and polite exterior that adds to the feeling that his is a new era.
That’s not to say that after one positive result versus Tunisia that England are going to win the World Cup. Indeed, under Southgate’s new regime, such a “boom and bust” attitude seems expressly forbidden. The Coach has set about erasing the memory of failure – for example making the brave move to exclude former number one goalkeeper Joe Hart from the squad altogether – his decisions seemingly not bound by the shackles of the opinions of the FA, the Press or the English public like in years gone by.
It was clear from Monday evening’s post-match interviews that the newly-formed squad of talented youngsters have been protected from aspects such as press intrusion that have caused so many problems in the past, Southgate’s recovery from previous trauma acting as though it were an invisible shield to guard them from the same fate.
Togetherness and positivity instigated by the Coach seems to have brought them even more closely together. While they may not yet be the finished article, Southgate has done the most important job in ensuring history does not repeat itself, that the “same old England” chaos of the past cannot hurt his players as it once did him. There is a sense that something good is being built here, and the best thing is that results at this World Cup are not the be-all and end-all, that the horizon is far beyond a single summer.
Gareth Southgate may seem meek and mild but – make no mistake – beyond his quiet and well-spoken exterior is a fierce lion, one that revealed itself at the final whistle in his pride over the tenacity of a team he has built entirely his own way.
