For at least a decade, the dynamic in international camps held England back. Now, England’s players love playing in this team. For all the negativity that will forever swirl around them, that is a triumph and should be a source of great pride.
The first thing to say, and it is important: it was a delicious piece of banter, the sort of banter that was fun before banter went bad. On his Instagram feed earlier this week, James Maddison posted an image of him and Trent Alexander-Arnold, tagging his England teammate in, with the sneaky caption: “Still asking for a replay”.
It cut through the bullshit instantly. It demonstrated that players rise above the outrage and see it all for what it is: more than a little bit silly. If there was any suggestion that there might be any lingering bitterness between the Tottenham and Liverpool contingents, of which Maddison and Alexander-Arnold are the entirety in this squad, this made it look foolish.
It also offered an insight into the changing dynamic of this England generation. The blame for the underperformance of England’s Golden Generation can be attributed to poor tactics, poor performance and poor luck as you wish, but of greater significance was the lack of bond between component parts of the squad. Here’s Frank Lampard to explain:
“We used to turn up for England duty, having gone up against each other all season, and all the major players from the ‘Golden Generation’ were the same. Myself and John [JT, to you, me and himself] were massively behind Chelsea and it was the same with Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher from Liverpool, the same with Rio [Ferdinand] and the Manchester United players.
“You really felt, as you should for your club, those bonds and it was human nature that we stayed in our own groups. If we could go back in time, maybe I would not have sat next to John at the dinner table every time – maybe, with experience, we could have crossed that divide.” Lord knows Lampard would have at least enjoyed a more pleasant dining experience.
This was football as a Very Serious Business, a point of personality principles. “Crossing the divide” is a gloriously melodramatic assessment of some blokes sitting at one table and some at another, several feet away, but it mattered.
Players within those squads – high on talent, low on unity – had genuine disaffection for each other. If you underplay its impact, you haven’t spent enough time around elite sports teams. Sporting ambition can live and die by its harmony.
The 2018 World Cup was the great lurch in the opposite direction, the breakout of Fun England. Fifteen of the 23 players in that squad had just finished in the Premier League’s top four – that could have made a difference. It was a squad of nice boys under a nice manager using previous failure and their own decency to do nice things.
It continued into Euro 2020, with its cavalcade of longreads on how Unity the inflatable unicorn was the nation’s spirit animal and an Atomic Kitten re-release was the soundtrack of the summer. That was Gareth Southgate’s greatest achievement: creating a positive environment that made winning a major tournament quarter-final 4-0 was in any way a normal thing.
The next challenge was to find a middle ground between the two and we may just have managed that too. There is a competitive edge in the group: the Liverpool–Manchester City rivalry, Tottenham and Arsenal both in the top four, Liverpool and Manchester United representatives.
But spend any time around these players, listening to them talk, and they seem like a bunch of mates. Rivalry is fuelled not by club cliques but by the competition for places, particularly in attacking midfield. And if someone isn’t in the team, they wish those who are the best and mean it.
The World Cup in Qatar was, ultimately, a disappointment thanks to a penalty miss and unfortunate defeat (England had double the number of French shots and roughly doubled their xG). But the most salient comment of England’s tournament came from Bukayo Saka before the quarter-final.
“This World Cup has been quite a journey so far. I have enjoyed every moment of it and the last few weeks have been the best weeks of my life. When I come away with England, it feels like a family. We are all so happy for each other when one of us scores or plays really well and I just want to keep making memories with the rest of these guys.”
Saka is not a young man prone to hyperbole. He has a culture at club level that cherishes and champions him (and his comment is no slight on Arsenal). He has done so much, so quickly. So if he says that the best weeks of his life were with this group, this “family”, we should believe him.
This all rails against the general vibe. Tribalism has never been higher in domestic football – perhaps that is one reason why England feels like an escape. The climate around Southgate is now majoritively negative.
That’s partly due to the demand to make good on the talent of this crop, and partly because we have been shown a glimpse of glory. Emotionally, it was easier to just get knocked out by Iceland, angrily demand a root-and-branch review and then quickly go back to club football.
But Saka, Maddison, Alexander-Arnold et al implicitly plea for something impossible: just let them play. It’s a fallacy, of course. Letting a group of England players just be is like squeezing a tube of toothpaste into the sink and then trying to refill it, a sea of swears and wasted ambition.
But this England team is having fun, on the pitch and in each other’s company. It goes something like this: if they’re smiling, so should we be.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/KwxPFao
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