The group stage of a major football tournament is the equivalent of pre-season training. Any team with any pretensions of winning the trophy has to grit its teeth, get fit, get used to playing with each other and get through it. Then the true contenders find another level.
England have done the first part. They did not win any plaudits for style or fluency in their matches against Serbia, Denmark and Slovenia but they did their job and they finished top of Group C.
Now, as they head into their Round of 16 tie against Slovakia in Gelsenkirchen on Sunday, it is time to move up a gear and play to their potential because this is a team with the talent and the character to go all the way in Germany.
There are still myriad reasons to believe Gareth Southgate’s side can get to the final of this European Championship in Berlin on July 14th and win it and that is why Mail Sport is launching a ‘We’re Backing England’ campaign today.
I backed England to win it before the tournament and even though their performances have been disappointing so far, I haven’t changed my mind. We have the players to do it. That hasn’t altered.
Mail Sport is launching a ‘We’re backing England campaign’ to get behind the Three Lions
The negativity and toxicity surrounding England is worrying ahead of the Euro 2024 knockouts
Harry Kane and Co have looked lacklustre and unconvincing so far in Germany – but they still finished top of Group C and have a favourable route to the final at the European Championship
Kobbie Mainoo (left) injected much-need energy into England’s midfield while Phil Foden (right) showed himself as the Three Lions’ best player against Slovenia on Tuesday night
Players like Jude Bellingham, Harry Kane, Phil Foden, John Stones and Kyle Walker are among the very best in the world at what they do. Marc Guehi has stepped up to be our most impressive defender. They are talented enough to make us believe that they can reach a higher level than they have produced so far.
Most of the other leading nations have played unevenly, too. Only Spain have looked consistently impressive. France were not good enough to win their group. Neither were Belgium.
England have reached this point without getting remotely close to their best in any of their three games. Kane, Stones, Bukayo Saka and Anthony Gordon have all needed time to work their way towards full fitness after pre-tournament lay-offs.
Southgate toyed with the experiment of playing Trent Alexander-Arnold in midfield and then abandoned it. He tried playing Conor Gallagher alongside Declan Rice in the first half against Slovenia and then abandoned that, too.
That did not exactly inspire confidence but by the end of the Slovenia game, it was beginning to look as if England had finally groped their way towards a system that was working, with Kobbie Mainoo at the fulcrum of the team, Cole Palmer working some magic and Gordon stretching play on the wing.
BBC presenter Gary Lineker described England as ‘s***’ in last week’s 1-1 draw against Denmark
Gary Neville (left) defended the ‘football criticism’ aimed at England’s stars after their poor performances at the Euros. Pictured: Neville, Ange Postecoglou (centre) and Roy Keane (right)
England’s camp has since had to deal with the negativity – and it’s affecting their confidence
It happens in tournaments. Teams evolve and they have to evolve fast. It isn’t how you start a tournament that matters. It is how you finish it and Southgate has responded to the problems in the opening games, not by ignoring them but by making changes.
It is hardly unusual for a team to make an uncertain start to a tournament and go on to win it. At the 1982 World Cup, in their first game, Italy drew 0-0 with Poland, then they drew 1-1 with Peru and 1-1 with Cameroon.
They sneaked through to the next round where they found a way past Argentina and then beat Brazil 3-2 in one of the greatest games of football ever played. They beat West Germany in the final.
Argentina lost to Saudi Arabia in their opening game at the Qatar World Cup, Spain lost to Switzerland in their first match in 2010. England struggled mightily in the group stage of the 1990 World Cup before reaching the semis. It happens. An average beginning is not always a reliable augury.
This might be seen as clutching at straws if it were not for the players that England have. Bellingham played like Superman in the first game against Serbia and even if his performances have dipped since, he already has the pedigree, at 20, to suggest he will step up again.
Foden, who is expected to be back in Germany in time to play after returning home for the birth of his third child, was England’s best player against Slovenia and was getting nearer to the form he so often shows for Manchester City.
Kane looked fitter, Mainoo gave the midfield the energy and the penetration it had been lacking before he was introduced, Palmer brought an x-factor and Gordon, even in the couple of minutes he got, brought pace and a willingness to take on his man. Things, tentatively, are moving in the right direction.
Some are so eager to damn Southgate that they are already rolling their eyes and saying that if England do progress, it is only because England have got a lucky draw because Spain, Germany, Portugal and France are in the other half.
France, one of the favourites, have not been at their best so far – failing to finish top of Group D
Portugal’s star man Cristiano Ronaldo has yet to score at the European Championship so far
Belgium fans voiced their anger after a disappointing campaign in the group, finishing second
Many would argue that England would actually be better suited to playing the Netherlands in the Round of 16 than Slovakia but let us put that aside for a moment. If you think England have a lucky draw, it is because England made their own luck. They won their group. They fulfilled their first assignment. France did not.
Maybe we should have a look at ourselves, too. England have been subjected to a barrel-load of criticism since the tournament began and they have deserved much of it. Much of it has been fair and cogent and well-argued. England’s football has sometimes been pallid and uninspired and sometimes simply dull.
But Southgate’s side won their group, without losing a match, and the leading sports presenter of the state broadcaster is calling the team ‘s***’. Really?
And when Southgate goes to applaud the England supporters at the end of the draw with Slovenia that sealed the place at the top of the group, some of those supporters throw plastic beer cups at him and jeer at gesticulate at him. Really?
Perhaps it is old-fashioned to abhor Lineker’s intemperate language but there is a direct link between his crude, puerile rabble-rousing and the hostile reaction Southgate received from the minority of idiots in the England end in Cologne.
The cumulative effect is to edge England back towards the situation that existed when Southgate took over the manager’s job and which had existed for much of the previous 30 years. Many of the advances he has made in the relationship between the team and the fans, sadly, seem to be unravelling.
Gareth Southgate (left) and assistant boss Steve Holland (right) have been working to solve England’s problem areas during the group stages, experimenting with midfield combinations
With the group stage over, England are gearing up to face Slovakia in the last-16 on Sunday
Former England star Kieron Dyer has openly admitted that he would often not take any chances on the ball because he was so scared of the criticism that would come his way
It is beginning to look worryingly as if we have moved back to a point where the players are inhibited when they play for England because they fear the kind of extreme criticism that is going to be aimed at them at tournaments.
Lineker’s cheap attempt to garner attention does a disservice to legitimate criticism aimed at England’s performances by pundits like Alan Shearer, Roy Keane, Gary Neville and by newspapers and radio outlets.
The players were all there when the projectiles were thrown at Southgate in Cologne. They were standing near him. They were close enough to hear the screams of abuse and the jeers. You do not have to be a psychologist to realise it is not going to do wonders for their confidence.
The atmosphere around them and around England is toxic again. That is the truth. We are edging ever closer to the time back in the 2000s when players like Kieron Dyer, who has spoken openly about it since, would not take any chances on the ball because he was so scared of the criticism that would come their way, both in the media and from the terraces, if he made a mistake or misplaced a pass.
If you wonder why England have been playing conservatively in Germany, if you think they have been playing a lot of square passes, if you think that they are not taking on their man enough, the toxicity around them and their manager, particularly from a broadcast media engaged in an ever-more ferocious battle to produce viral clips, is one of the reasons why.
Southgate was booed after England’s draw with Slovenia and had plastic cups thrown at him
The Three Lions still have the tools to win the tournament despite a disappointing group stage
England are lucky that they have Southgate to help the players deal with that. Alongside Sir Bobby Robson and Terry Venables, he is the best man-manager England have had and they will need his considered wisdom and the benefit of his experience to help them go deeper into this tournament.
The tournament is still wide open. Only Spain are tearing up trees, Portugal lost to Georgia on Wednesday night and Cristiano Ronaldo has not yet scored a goal, Germany don’t look quite as good when they’re not playing Scotland, France are struggling to gel and Belgium are being booed by their supporters, too.
Everything is to play for. Pre-season is over and the tournament is about to move up a gear. England are still here. They are still in it to win it.