Imagine if this were just a last-16 tie. Wait a minute, you mean it isn’t the final? The bells and whistles build-up, apart from driving discerning souls round the bend, is open to rejection by the match itself.
For all its promise, England versus Germany might easily emulate the stifling contest between Belgium and Portugal, which never came close to matching the sum of its parts.
That was partly to do with a Portuguese coach who insists on leaving the best parts on the bench. Let the exclusion from the starting line-up of creatives Joao Felix and Bruno Fernandes for foot soldiers Joao Moutinho and Joao Palhinha be a lesson to Gareth Southgate. Winning ugly is harder than it seems.
Southgate might look at the way lightly-regarded Hungary gave Germany the hurry-up in a style the cautious Portuguese never could. Germany were eight minutes from going home, engulfed by the Hungarian zeitgeist reconnecting with its golden past. You could sense the ghosts of Ferenc Puskas, Nandor Hidegkuti and Sandor Koksis proudly nodding their approval as the rising Magyar spirit manifested once more just as it did 70 years ago.
To focus on the big houses of European football, while understandable to a degree, ignores the scope of fairytales to reshape the picture. One of Denmark and the Czech Republic, neither of whom attracted our gaze beforehand, will appear in the semi-finals.
Denmark’s progression following the near-tragic end to Christian Eriksen’s involvement in their opening group fixture is the story of the tournament, and Patrick Schick’s second goal for the Czechs against Scotland its most glorious emblem.
We have listened for the best part of a week to the testimony of England players distancing themselves from the narrative that older members of the community seem incapable of escaping. This is, of course, a result of historic factors outside of football that still impact the sentiment of a generation raised on first-hand accounts of twentieth century European conflicts.
The tensions that surrounded the complicated geo-political relations between England and Germany were easily sublimated into the sporting domain, a feature which, clearly, has yet to work its way out of the English psyche. And so we trudge through ancient motifs that, mercifully, leave the youth of the nation untouched.
How to watch England vs Germany
- Date: Tuesday 29 June
- Time: 5pm
- TV channel: BBC One
- Stream: The game will be available via BBC iPlayer
- Location: Wembley Stadium
The attachment to this lingering feeling of Germany as the other is made even more absurd by the interconnected nature of the modern game. Two members of the England squad earn their living in the Bundesliga. Five members of the German squad play in the Premier League, with a further two having done so.
We know as much about Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund as we do Manchester City and Liverpool, and via one platform or another see as much of both. That is where the fascination lies, in evaluating how Premier League teammates past and present perform on opposing sides. The match has, in that regard, the tribal flavour of a local derby as opposed to a collision of unknowable and disconnect cultures.
Kalvin Phillips was not the first English player left scratching his head when presented with searching questions about facing a German midfield comprising Toni Kroos and Ilkay Gundogan. Erm, I play against Gundogan in the day job, mate. And if there is a YouTube clip of Kroos that Phillips has not consumed, it probably dates back to the German’s school days.
And yes, England have been practicing penalties. Not out of some recidivist urge to purge the torment of failures past but to meet the professional obligation to prepare for all eventualities against a well-matched opponent. Should fate call the players forward, the fact that their esteemed coach Southgate missed against Germany 25 years ago will not come into the equation. Putting the ball in the back of the net in order to progress to the next round is as far as it goes for them.
Doubtless, should any fail, they will not be short of offers from enterprising pizza outlets seeking to couple them with Southgate and fellow fall guy from 1996, Stuart Pearce. That said, the price of putting an England footballer in your ad has rocketed since Pizza Hut persuaded Southgate and Pearce to do business. And how many of today’s poster boys would risk the fast food association?
Fingers crossed it doesn’t come to that. Let us hope also that England give a performance worthy of the fixture and the sense of occasion surrounding it. Since taking over from Sam Allardyce five years ago Southgate has seduced us with big themes, sold us a vision unencumbered by past collapses, powered by a squad of players fluent in methods and techniques formerly associated only with our continental neighbours and exotic dribblers from South America.
This utopia is England’s to claim, Southgate promised. Yet when called upon to set pulses ablaze in this tournament Southgate has fallen victim to the very thinking he would have his players obliterate. He has laboured under the familiar caution that has fatally inhibited England in the past, prioritising clean sheets over creativity.
So it is to Southgate’s sense of adventure that we appeal. If England really are to cut ties with a past that includes knockout defeats to Germany on the four occasions the teams have met since England triumphed at the 1966 World Cup, it starts with Southgate delivering on his own manifesto. Failure to do so risks driving us prematurely into the arms of the returning Love Island. There has to be more to life than that.
More from i on Euro 2020
- England aren’t ‘rubbish’ and Southgate isn’t a ‘fraud’ – we just need a bit of patience
- What the Premier League could learn from Euro 2020’s controversy-free referees
- The football nomad who became a hero for his role in saving Eriksen’s life
- How Ronaldo’s Coca-Cola stunt could change the face of football sponsorship
- How to watch every Euro 2020 match on TV and online in the UK
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/2UORdHl
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