Gareth Southgate has taken England to the verge of eternal glory

By Joe Townsend

15:45 · SUN July 14, 2024

International football is increasingly about moments.

For all Spain's dominance at Euro 2024, it took a 30-yard wondergoal from a teenager and some individual brilliance from a back-up midfielder to get them into the final.

Step forward Aston Villa's Ollie Watkins.

"I swear on my life and my kids' lives, I said to Cole (Palmer) 'we're coming on today and you're gonna set me up.' It's just the best feeling ever."

For a former Exeter City player, who spent the early part of his career on loan at Weston-super-Mare, to step forward as the latest protagonist on a growing list of Euro 2024 storylines, made England's dramatic win over the Netherlands feel extra special; or at the very least, added to the sheer disbelief that this could be happening at all.

A 94th-minute overhead kick equaliser, a penalty shootout victory, and now a 91st-minute winner. For England?

These moments bring teams together. They bring us all together. Underpinning everything is one man.

From boos, beer cups and criticism in Cologne to unadulterated delirium in Dusseldorf and Dortmund.

The journey this England team has made under footballing anti-hero Gareth Southgate, at this tournament alone, is bordering on the remarkable.

They now stand one game from eternal glory.

It's hard to underestimate the sheer bloodymindedness the England manager has shown to stick to his guns despite deafening noise through a tournament that has felt distinctly more pressurised than any of his previous three.

A team is often a reflection of its manager, and for most (if not all) of Southgate's reign, his conservatism has been identified as the only shared characteristic.

But what we have witnessed over the past month, especially the past 10 days, is a resilience on the pitch that no previous England team has ever been able to exhibit. The kind of resilience that comes from a group of players being managed by a man facing constant, unrelenting criticism.

The Southgate era has been littered with firsts, trying to shake off past failures to form a new identity grounded in a sheer will to win.

First World Cup penalty shootout win. First Euros final. First major tournament final on foreign soil.

They have reached Berlin by becoming the first team to make a European Championship final having trailed in both the quarter and semi-finals; and it's pretty much impossible to forget the round of 16, too.

We're all damaged by England's legacy. It's what drives such disproportionate reaction to poor performances. We don't believe it's possible to do what is needed and no more, to build through a tournament, to be lucky.

And who can blame us? It's never happened.

Right up until the moment Watkins rifled into the bottom corner, and even if I'm honest for the few minutes afterwards, I can't have been the only person who felt that eerie sense of deja vu.

Hitting the post, cleared off the line, a disallowed goal. Not again, surely. So England, to play better and only now lose.

But like everything in this tournament, this time it was different.

Not only was this England's best performance so far, it was arguably Southgate's too - in all of his eight years.

Despite an excellent first half, the supposedly reactive, tactically clueless coach proactively replaced Kieran Trippier with Luke Shaw. When the game was in the balance, he made tweaks to counteract the Netherlands' changes, before boldy taking off Harry Kane and Phil Foden. On came Watkins and Palmer, and the rest, as they say, is history.

And that is the verge on which England and Southgate now stand.

There is no escaping that while a World Cup semi-final and quarter-final and back-to-back Euros finals is phenomenal, it still feels as though in the eyes of many it will count for nothing should England lose to Spain on Sunday.

Southgate will only have proved his doubters wrong if he can become the first man since 1966 to give the country what it craves so deeply. If he can allow us to finally shake off the shared failure that binds us so tightly together.

This England find a way to win.

Now go and finish the job.

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