GELSENKIRCHEN — During the first half, at half-time and during the second half, they booed and that reaction was amplified tenfold back home as an atmosphere became deeply toxic.
At full-time they cheered and sang and treated players as if they were heroes. This was no sign of a mended relationship, just pure fickleness. That is the right of every football supporter.
Do you remember 2018, those bygone days of summer that now feel like sepia-tinted yesteryear? Then, the England team were the conjurors of a new national mood. England’s footballers frolicked in swimming pools and took pre-match selfies with supporters without fear of being caught up in angry disagreement. We, they, all of us had undergone a period of intense, deep reconnection.
Ah well. If the cynics suggested that this was only ever a temporary exception to the depressing, incessant norm, so it has proven. The toxic culture has returned and this time it feels doubly awkward because we cannot pretend that these closeted millionaire men-children do not care and exist in their unhelpful cliques.
The one persisting theme of this European Championship for England has been its intermittent soundtrack: boos from supporters at the games, boos in the media, boos back home and boos online. And so we arrive at the microcosm of the whole: those cheers at the end in Gelsenkirchen, for manager and players, were the temporary exception too.
None of this is particularly helpful. Supporters have paid their money and travelled their miles and for that they get to take their choice, including booing, but there’s no doubt that it has affected the mood of England’s players (particularly the younger ones) significantly at this tournament. Some will say “deal with it” and that criticism is fully justified – fair enough. But if our shared end goal is for England to the best they can, it is certainly counterproductive.
In the long-term, this envelops the players and shapes their careers. Young footballers remember this stuff and it subconsciously weakens their relationship with the national team. If your response is that you’re only booing the manager, know this: they love Gareth Southgate and they all feel every boo.
But in the short-term, another theory grows. Listening to Jude Bellingham speak after the game – “it’s nice to give a bit back”, “pile on”, “letting your nation down” – and seeing him celebrate was to witness a siege mentality forming. We will show you how wrong you are to doubt us.
To repeat, that is not healthy beyond this week or this tournament. But when the tactics aren’t really working, the relationship between players on the pitch looks compartmentalised, the style of play is pedestrian and the attacking patterns look so flawed, a team’s ability to drag itself through depends upon the production of key moments by key players.
If everything else seems broken, England will always have those players and thus back themselves to create those moments, eventually. Over the course of an entire match, natural talent can be stymied by poor strategy or confidence or by an effective opposition. But in glorious fleeting seconds, talent pushes green shoots through dry earth. Bellingham and Harry Kane are England’s two clutch players and their only two goalscorers at this tournament.
It would be better if, as in 2018 and 2021, the fuel was national harmony behind the national team, as the team ensures our emotional wellbeing rather than destroys it. But if the spark has to be righteous anger at the perceived unhelpful negativity from those who they hoped would stick with them whatever, so be it. My goodness we need something.
England have – literally and figuratively – occupied the middle ground for too long at Euro 2024. Let’s see them play on the edge, stoked by wrath, and dream that that just might work.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/NkyD0QT
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