Around 60 minutes into the World Cup semi-final I knew we were going to blow it.
The missed chances of the first half were haunting us and Croatia had tweaked their formation. Alli, Lingard and Henderson no longer had the ball but spent their time filling space and trying to make it difficult for their opponents to pass through them.
Walker and Trippier couldn’t divide the task of picking up the impish Perisic between them. Tactically we had no answer. The bench held few solutions except like-for-like replacements.
As the inevitable unfolded, I began the various stages of grief. I was at acceptance a long time before the final whistle went.
The problem is I can’t seem to shift into moving on. I still feel an enormity of disappointment that is crushing and feels personal and raw which is ridiculous because this is a tragedy being played out for an entire nation.
At the final whistle, my eight-year-old son burst into tears. His mum and sister cuddled and consoled him through the snot bubble and panting stage that is regulation for boys of his age. Later, once the base emotion has been exhausted I spoke to him.
I tried to explain to him that defeats such as these make it all the sweeter when your team does win something. That he’s young and he’ll see England play in plenty more tournaments. That he’ll see Norwich win promotion one day. That it’s all part of the game.
He looked less than convinced.
In many ways, I can’t blame him. Last year was his first as a season ticket holder at Carrow Road and, barring Timm Klose’s last minute equaliser against Ipswich, he was given a paucity of moments of magic or home wins to convince him that football ever gives you a high to go with the lows.
His first international tournament has obviously had an effect on him in terms of his appreciation of football. The good technical play, the late goal drama, high-tension penalty shootouts, and the pleasing displays from England have all struck a chord, and you can see from the intelligence and the depth of the questions he’s asking that this has great meaning for him.
The downside of that, of course, is that when it becomes too ingrained it becomes personal, and then defeat hurts, like it is hurting right now.
He’s also from a different generation, one that is far more connected to the adult world than mine ever was at his age. Through social and general media, both mediums have raised expectations sky high over the past month. Every gurning C-List celebrity has been queuing up to assure anybody who’d listen that in their expert and informed opinion, football was indeed, coming home.
While I can give some credence to that opinion when it comes from Jose Mourinho, I’m less convinced by the musings of Kerry Katona. I’m facing an uphill battle to explain to him why all these people got it so wrong though.
Roy Keane and Ian Wright were arguing on the TV. Keane was doing his “intense is the only way to be” schtick and getting irritated at Wright and the English public for getting carried away with plans for the final and what they’d be doing on Sunday.
Wright was baiting him, full widebody act because he knew it enrages the hair-trigger temper of Keane. He was laughing, saying how positive the tournament had been and this juxtaposed with Keane’s grumpy demeanour, annoyed at the antics of a nation that’s not even his own, for jinxing themselves with over-confidence.
The problem is I’m with Keane.
The hoop-la of England having a team that wasn’t filled with sulking underachievers who had failed dozens of times before, matched with exciting early performances was too much. England expected. As soon as the draw opened up, the whole country was convinced not that we could win, but we would win.
As much as England’s players were geographically removed from this bubble of ill-founded belief, the world is no longer bound by the barrier of geography. They were all on their phones within an hour of matches finishing, joking on Twitter, or sharing selfies on Instagram.
So, they saw videos of eejits tossing beer and glass skywards as a shot bobbled off Harry Kane’s heel to break the tension of a five-goal lead against Panama to put us six up.
They saw Colchester town centre come to a standstill whilst citizens of the once-Roman capital wandered gormlessly among its main roads like a zombie herd (albeit an undead apocalypse that was obsessed with carrying around armfuls of Strongbow Dark Fruits).
They also saw the unfettered certainty that abounded from all corners that it WAS coming home. Unquestionably. And when Croatia changed formation and subsequently equalized our belief drained.
This wasn’t part of the script. Luca Modric was right in his post-match interview. And for all Roy Keane’s charmless crankiness, so was he. We underestimated Croatia, and we underestimated the challenge of a World Cup semi-final.
This is not a dig at Gareth Southgate or any of the players by the way. They performed admirably throughout. And short of encasing them in concrete and only breaking them out for the matches, it was impossible not to get caught up in the hype from back home.
As I checked social media my Keane-esque bitterness heightened. Facebook seemed full of people who never watch football usually, parroting platitudes they’ve heard on the TV. Even people whose opinion on the game I respect were saying positive upbeat things while I remained in a pit of despair. I feel like the teenager whose parents have recently separated, seeing his mum bring home a new boyfriend and wanting to snidely comment, ‘well you moved on rather quickly…’
My sole offering on Twitter was simply a stream of consciousness and was constructed of more uses of an “F” than Joey Essex’s school report.
The next day at work was no better. In every office across the land, there’ll be a Sandra or Barbara who don’t follow football who made it their business to make a B-line for one of the “football guys” and ask if they saw the match. In our office, I was one of those guys.
My inner demon sits on my shoulder and wanted to give a sarcastic ‘No, was there a game on? Do tell…’ but instead, I mouthed a few trite nuggets of cod punditry that I thought would satisfy her and make her leave me alone.
‘Well, I think…’
I was thinking… ‘Oh Jesus, Barbara. Don’t do this. Don’t spew your guff at me. Because although I’ll probably smile and make more perfunctory sounds, I can’t guarantee it today. I can’t guarantee that when you try and ram your cr@p in my lugholes I won’t attack you with the hole punch and selection of lemon-scented screen wipes that are on my desk. The world doesn’t need to know what you think Barbara. Not on any subject really, but particularly this subject at this time.’
The moment passed. Barbara’s thoughts were limited to how we’d all be cheered up if we had a biscuit, and as she reached for the tin with her hands unpierced by a hole punch and popped up a custard cream in her mouth, (mercifully free from a rolled-up screen wipe), I was offered a chocolate finger and I did feel mildly better.
And at that point, I had an epiphany. I understood why I couldn’t shake this funk. Why I seemed to feel this latest disappointment more sharply and individually than seems reasonable.
I’m feeling old.
I was just a kid last time England made it to a World Cup semi-final. I know how rarely these opportunities come around. And this opportunity was as good as it gets:
- All the South American teams out by the quarter-finals.
- Germany, Portugal and Spain gone.
- Italy and Holland didn’t even qualify.
Chances don’t come around like that every tournament. Who knows if we’ll ever have that chance again? I might never see it happen in my lifetime.
Being a Norwich fan, I’m resigned to the fact that barring a revolution against capitalism I’m never going to see my team compete for major honours. The lightning of Leicester City doesn’t strike twice. But with England there’s a chance, a tiny chance, that a team I support could win the big one.
And I’m bitterly disappointed they couldn’t do it. Even the realisation that this is the route of my melancholy can’t diminish the abject, soul-crushing ennui or the yearning to rewind the clock to 7:10 on Wednesday evening and let them have another go at winning that bloody game. And while I expect the keenness with which I’m feeling this disappointment will ebb over time, it will remain.
We were so damn close…
Sums it all up perfectly Andy and it was fun whilst it lasted, but I’m not convinced we would have beaten France on Sunday.
Someone summed it up perfectly yesterday – ‘with all the money that’s swilling around in English football, we are MASSIVELY underachieving!!’ We have far too many foreign players in the PL and even the Championship (INCLUDING NCFC) is heading that way.
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Brilliant Andy! Especially the Barbara/office bit
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I would agree with the sentiments, and just add one thing -where are all the English players plying their trade for leading European clubs, all we have are premiership players surrounded by overseas stars, sure some will rub off but the home grown players experiencing the feeling of competing at the highest level, and winning ,is sadly limited.
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Agree with that Bernard – have been saying this throughout the fallow years. Alas, the financial clout of the Premier League is a massive disincentive for any of them to try their luck on the continent – which is a great shame. For these young men to sample different styles of football and different cultures could only be a good thing. The one thing lacking from Southgate’s Class of 2018 was experience (which can only be gained and not fast-tracked) and streetwise-ness, which playing abroad would assist with.
Having said all of that… Harry Kane didn’t miss those two first-half chances because he’s only played over here 🙂
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Yes Gary, Kane may very well end up with the ‘Golden Boot’ – but I would question whether he REALLY deserves it.
Yes, he’s got 6 goals, but includes 3 penalties and an absolute fluke …… 😉
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Well said Andy; am with you all the way.
Yes, because of the ludicrous salaries in the Premier league we’ve been playing (or trying to play until now) catch-up for far too long.
We over achieved to get as far as the semi-final, but hopefully this group can mainly stay together so the next couple of Euro tournaments and the Qatar World Cup could see more progress being made.
Despite eventually being beaten by an excellent and vastly more experienced Croatia team there were a couple of plus points for me:-
1 – how brilliant to have a group of players who actually joined in the singing of the national anthem AND appeared to know the words.
2- unfortunately for England in the semi-final, Harry Kane can still turn in the sort of performance we saw often when he was on loan here!
O T B C
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Another good comment, John. Harry’s first-half miss was horribly reminiscent of the one we all remember against West Ham 😫
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This Roy Keane bloke who got so upset with Wright, is he the same bloke who walked out on his country on the eve of a major tournament? Asking for a friend
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You mean this Roy Keane, Gary? https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/may/01/world-cup-moments-roy-keane-ireland-exit
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That’s him!
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Brilliant Andy my thoughts almost exactly, yes they went further than we all expected but…….what a chance hey? As you say most of the powerful nations gone early or did not qualify, we may well have struggled against a good French side …we may not
Nobody seems to have questioned why Southgate didn’t change our shape to counteract their full backs getting so much space and stop them crossing into our box….we were 1 up after all so surely we could have gone to 4 5 1 to try and stiffle them,all ifs and buts I know but better than doing nothing .
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Indeed. I think Southgate and the players did marvellously over the course of the tournament but were below par and a little carried away against Croatia. Psychologically the early goal gave us a false sense of security and had we turned the screw and got a second we’d have killed them off. As we didn’t we drifted into a coasting mode and couldn’t cope with the changes Croatia made. Minor errors compared to all the positive changes made to be fair. But the kind of errors you can’t afford at the very highest level of competition.
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And if that 1 had been Kane in his correct position rather than pushed into midfield to accommodate the utterly useless and ineffective Vardy…
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Bad luck England. They were much better than I expected but, like others, I feel that they have missed out on the chance in a generation for them to play in a final.
I am, however, pleased that strangers won’t continuously come up to me saying ‘it’s coming home’ like some handmaid who’s been allowed to shed their bonnet.
Only a few weeks till the proper stuff starts…
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You only have to look at Ncfc to realise how many English players we have.If they are and
usually young they are packed off for a year to a lesser club mainly to get them off the wage bill or as the club states gain experience. Just what is Phillips going to learn at Hamilton?Probably how to kick the ball as far up the pitch as he can!He should be here as well as Abrahams being on the bench and playing cup games pushing for a first team spot.Instead we have cheap foreign players taking their places.England will never win the world cup how things stand as there just isn’t enough English players given a chance,not even in the championship.
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Maddison certainly valued his time at Aberdeen. I suspect Phillips will learn plenty
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Well Andy and other commentors have enjoyed the read very much this morning.
To add a little my biggest disappointment was the Ref how he didn’t book Lovren so some of the tackles he did on Kane was criminal and that body check was discussing.
How did Croatia end up with less yellow cards than England???????
On the day England didn’t preform to the high standards of the qualification rounds but as the Belgium side showed mark them closely and you stop them playing.
In both games Kane had to go looking for the ball and spent most of his time trying to set up the faster Striling and Linguard.
The officials didn’t cover themselves in glory over the 120 minutes but was pleased to see that none of the management and players jumped on the old bandwagon and blame them.
FIFA are a joke just to get more money they insist on the 3rd /4th place play off that no ones wants and they complain that the players play to many games, now they fined England £50k for having the wrong socks on as it cover up their sponsors now they are looking into fining them for indiscriminate chanting, possibly next they will want a share of the premiership profits just to add to their coffers.
Well done to all the England squad lets go one better in the next Euros
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I want to be positive, and we have exceeded pre tournament expectation……..but……this was such an opportunity, Croatia were far from brilliant on the day, We should have taken advantage in the first half. But we got worse n worse as the game went on, when it became clear we were seeding all momentum second half, what did Southgate do? Sweet Fanny Adams! For me he had game changers on the bench but what does he do? Take off our biggest threat! (Sterling!) What should he have done?
Change formation to counter the newly dominant Croats?
Or Take off either Alli who had done little in the whole cup and looked knackered, I mean ffs, Loftus Cheek has been brilliant every time he’s come on! he might have wrestled back the momentum.
Or, and I might get slated for this, but Kane. totally annonamous for the second game on the trot, missed big chances and the only reason I can fathom for him staying on was pennos….Or lack of options upfront.
The next bit I have shamelessly stolen from Batterseacanary on not606 but it totally sums up my thoughts on how out of proportion the hype has got on England. We mearly didn’t fail horribly like usual, does that make our performance excellent? par for the course? or passable? Or poor? The barrometer is low because of past failings.
“If we beat Belgium on Saturday I’ll be impressed. The game in the group stages wasnt a real reflection of either teams personnel, skill, or indeed desire. For that reason it’s hard to include it as a barometer of progress.
Look at it this way.
England, ranked 12th, comfortably beat Sweden and panama (ranked 23rd and 55th).
England drew with Colombia, ranked 16th. (Yes we won penalties but that’s 5 mins of coin flip chance, the 120mins of football preceding it is a better assessment of footballing ability)
England narrowly beat Tunisia 2-1 (ranked 21st) and narrowly lost to Croatia 2-1 (ranked 20th.)
The England team were written off before the cup as being no up to much. Now they are being spoken of by the UK press as if they have defied the odds and proved that they were undervalued. There’s no evidence of this, in fact they have drawn and lost to teams below their already outsider ranking of 12th this tournament.
For me what’s changed is not about showing how they are one the big teams now, but rather showing that they aren’t self inflicted tragedy merchants anymore. The discipline was much better. No stupid red cards. The attitude of the players was more tempered. No arrogant crowing from the ‘golden generation.’ The defense looked more organised and robust under pressure than previously, with strong performances from Pickford.
But think about this. England were deemed a laughing stock when they lost to Iceland. That’s Iceland, currently ranked 22nd in the world. Based on this tournament, that’s exactly were Englands win lose uncertainty line is still firmly drawn.
We got to the semi finals. But we are not in the top four teams in the world. We arent even close. And this team are now going to be shackled with the expectation that they are a contender with the best, when theres no evidence to support this. When they fail to justify such lofty targets, it’s going to be ugly.”
Like I say, agree with that every word and to answer my own question, I think the WC was passable, no more. But the future looks a little brighter now than it has for a while, with successful age group sides to further enhance the squad and perhaps a certain Mr Maddison to potentially supply a creative spark that was absent this time around.
Bah!
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General
I fully agree that Kane was completely annonamous during the Croatian and Columbian games but both teams shackled him and he had no real help, Alli, Linguard and Sterling were all off Target not as the 1 game manager suggests in the Sun that it was all down to Kane.
After watching the Croatian game the first thing I couldn’t understand was why was both Lovren and Modric walking of at half time in conversation with the Ref and all smiling then in the second half all major decision goes their way and Lovren could have kicked Kane over the stadium without getting booked no matter the body check.
Phil Thompson has said on sky the Croatian equaliser was a foul on Walker in any other psrt of the field.
Now it is over we have to look and hope for better in the future and I for one must stop looking for what might have been
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It seems that people have forgotten the lyrics to 3 Lions. It’s football’s coming home, not the WC trophy. The great thing about this World Cup is that it has brought football home. The last time I felt this proud for my national team was 1996.
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Fantastic article Andy – only just had the chance to read it properly – and as a nine-year-old in 1966 I expected England to win everything thereafter. Well you do, don’t you, until you grow up.
Excellent comments from all concerned on the piece as well.
But at least we had the privilege of watching a squad and manager who tried to do a difficult job with heart, spirit and lack of conspicuous ego.
The most enjoyable World Cup in a long time.
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