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EM 2024 Kane and Southgate embody the eternal failure of the English
Striker Harry Kane (l.) and England coach Gareth Southgate appear badly injured after the final defeat against Spain
© Stu Forster / Getty Images
England have failed again on their way to the title. Coach Gareth Southgate and captain Harry Kane are the faces of the defeat – for very different reasons.
The walk through the guard of honour is one of football’s brutal rituals. The losers have to walk past the winners before they can hang the silver medal around their necks on the podium during the award ceremony. It is a gauntlet disguised as a fair gesture, and that is probably how the English national players felt that evening in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium. Harry Kane led the way as captain, his expression frozen. Coach Gareth Southgate was the last to make his way through the guard of honour of the victorious Spaniards and received a few warm words from Prince William and UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin.
Southgate and Kane are probably the two protagonists who are best responsible for the Three Lions’ latest defeat in a major final. Southgate, the unfortunate coach who reached the final of the European Championship twice in a row and failed both times. Kane, almost 31 years old, one of the best goalscorers in the world, but still without a title. The two embody more than anyone else the eternal failure of the English to finally win a second major title. Since the World Cup title on home soil 58 years ago, the kingdom has been waiting for another success. Now the English have to wait two years before they get their next chance at the World Cup in Mexico, the USA and Canada.
Never before has the title been more likely for England
Never before has a second title seemed more likely than in the summer of 2024. England came to Germany as one of the big favorites, but failed because of themselves, the visible exhaustion of their players and their own tactics, which relied on defense and security and hampered the offense.
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Kane trudged through the tournament rather than excelling and leading the team. Nevertheless, he scored important goals and shared three goals as joint top scorer with five other players. He fired his team into the lead in a 1-1 draw with Denmark in the group stage, scored the winner in extra time against Slovakia in the round of 16 and scored a penalty to equalise in the 2-1 semi-final victory over the Netherlands.
He partially fulfilled his intended role, but we will remember a captain who had difficulty keeping up with the tempo, who often disappeared or was not given passes that he could use. Recently, Southgate changed his captain several times early in order to get more “freshness” in the offense, as he said. This worked brilliantly in the semi-final against the Netherlands: Kane’s replacement Ollie Watkin scored the winning goal shortly before the end. Kane was seen little in the final, and his appearance ended in the 61st minute. The performances of Watkins and Cole Palmer made the goalscorer’s weakness all the more obvious.
Gareth Southgate is not considered a great tactician
But the Kane problem leads directly to the coach. As clumsy as the Bayern star’s appearance was, Southgate’s tactics and changes were just as clumsy, even though he later received praise for his substitutions. Basically, however, he only ever corrected his mistakes in the line-up. The experiment of using full-back Alexander Trent-Arnold in defensive midfield went completely wrong. In the third game, Southgate reacted and initially brought on Conor Gallagher, who proved to be another absentee. It was not until the round of 16 that Southgate ordered Kobbie Mainoo, who had been demanded by the media, into the starting eleven, which livened up the English game. Apparently, he did not initially trust the 19-year-old to successfully fill the role in defensive midfield alongside Declan Rice. Southgate is someone who relies more on experience than current form.
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On paper, he had one of the best attacking lines in the world at his disposal. But he never managed to unleash it, which led to massive criticism on the island. The quartet of Bukayo Saka, Phlil Foden, Jude Bellingham and Kane rarely worked together, and there were only a few moments when the English brought all their attacking power onto the pitch. The game lacked depth and the vertical pass between the chains (into the depth) seems to be unknown to Southgate. Why he went back to the back four in the final, even though he had successfully switched to a back three in the two previous games, remains a mystery. The 53-year-old was never considered a great tactician.
The question remains as to how much the exhaustion of the national players after a long season played a role in England’s European Championship appearance. At times it seemed as if their batteries were completely empty. At the end of the final match, England could not gain any more ground. Instead, they retreated to their own penalty area and were far too passive. The Spanish, on the other hand, followed one attack after the other until they finally found a gap in the English defense. Coach Luis de la Fuente’s team was much fitter, almost as if they had just come out of pre-season training.
Football England can now lick its wounds for two years. The most important question is: will Southgate stay as coach? His contract expires at the end of the year, until then he has time to consider whether he wants to extend it. Even before the European Championships, there was great support for him in the English FA, and he alone will decide on his future. In the FA, they know only too well that Southgate is the most successful coach in the history of the Three Lions after Sir Alf Ramsey, the coach who won the World Cup in 1966. That is also part of the truth.
Sources: “kicker”, “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, “The Athletic”, “The Guardian”
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