Football

Have England already missed their chance for World Cup glory?

As England flew out to Doha this week, the “buzzing” players immediately got back into old groups, but not cliques. This squad “isn’t built like that”. There’s a real team spirit, and sources both inside and outside the camp sincerely say you’d struggle to find a group more united at this World Cup. It might be England’s best advantage over everyone else.

It might also, however, hint at a growing weakness.

The group’s togetherness comes from the fact a core of the squad have been together for so long, their bonds fortified by the joy of an uplifting journey. This World Cup squad actually only features five names that are different from the original 26 for Euro 2020, before two enforced changes.

It raises two major questions that are going to frame England’s entire World Cup.

The first is whether this group is past its peak. That isn’t about age, but rather that distinctive chemistry that defines all sides. Gareth Southgate has now been in charge for six years, which is a long time in international football, and makes him the fifth longest-serving manager at this World Cup.

While he has naturally ensured the make-up of the squad has evolved in that period, there’s been no break, no transition. It is really the same core that has been together for that long, too.

The second question is whether that actually matters – especially in a World Cup like this. It can’t be dismissed that recent history shows it greatly helps. The last three World Cups have all been won by squads coming to their prime: Spain 2010, Germany 2014, France 2018. What was so distinctive about each of them, and why it could even be said they define a distinctive era in international football, was that they weren’t just team cycles coming together to this peak. These World Cup winners represented the culminations of much greater projects, given how each of the countries had completely revolutionised their entire football infrastructure in the years before.

It was really the wealthiest western European countries industrialising modern talent production. They became the models, that the Football Association rightly replicated.

This only sharpens the question about where England are right now. Because, in all FA plans, the 2022 World Cup had been marked as the target for when all changes could come to fruition. It has been the long-term ambition.

While England have certainly fulfilled their objective in terms of talent production, given that the quantity of young quality is the envy of Europe, the wonder is whether the current team has quite kept that pace.

England feel like theyshould be coming to their best moment after Euro 2020, and in the way Spain 2010 and Germany 2014 did, but they really don’t look like it.

One of the lingering regrets from that tournament was that the wonder over whether that specific point in time might have represented the peak for this group. The team has shown signs of staleness this year. That has especially been the case in attack, with a mere four goals in six games rounding off a miserable Nations League campaign.

There’s an argument that the drop-off fully exposed the long-term concerns about Southgate, that he is too tactically rigid a coach, unable to expand when the team isn’t on form.

For the manager’s part, the players and the people around the squad don’t really think those games mattered. The fixtures came at the end of almost two years of non-stop football after Covid, and there was just a general fatigue. And fatigue, of course, can be easily confused with staleness. The effects are similar.

The planning challenges of this year have meanwhile been so different. Southgate hasn’t just been trying to work from international break to international break or tournament cycle to tournament cycle, but as part of this long-term plan, and all that with the disruption of Covid and now this controversial mid-season World Cup.

The Three Lions begin against Iran on Monday

It is why his squad decisions have been intriguing, even if we can’t yet say they’re instructive. They’re actually difficult to interpret according to any preconceived ideas about Southgate.

Some have indeed looked overly loyal, especially in defence. Some, by contrast, have clearly based on recent form. Some have been total wild cards.

All of that together marks a real difference for Southgate himself. It is why the James Maddison decision is genuinely one of the most drastic he’s ever made in the job. That isn’t to do with the player’s sparkling form or ability. It is because this has previously been a manager who kept Jack Grealish on the bench for years, so wasn’t prone to abrupt changes. And yet here he is picking Maddison for a World Cup and talking about starting him, having not picked him for any squad at all for three years.

All of this can currently be seen in one of two ways.

England impressed on the way to the final at Euro 2020

Xural.com

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