Once the first phase of the championship is over, we can now say, without the risk of being more wrong than necessary, that the big name of this Euro Cup is Gareth Southgate, England coach and one of the most controversial figures in the land of inventors. of football since the times of Wallis Simpson, that socialite American with whom Edward VIII fell in love and for which he ended up abdicating the throne in favor of his brother, George VI, grandfather of the current monarch.
It was a love story that divided the country and plunged the British monarchy into a reputational crisis like the one Southgate is now suffering, committed to a formula of success that until now has only resulted in a high rate of boredom, not a little misunderstanding and a good handful of failures, if we understand this last term as the coach’s repeated inability to achieve the expected results. It’s been a while since the pross Victory in a major tournament is required of them, as if the other teams were Commonwealth football troupes, and perhaps that is where part of the general disenchantment that converges in the figure of Southgate, ultimately responsible for the English team, can come from.
Southgate was a very correct center back in his time as a footballer, conditions that are not inconsiderable when one must sustain the illusions of a people who live on fried fish and eat beans for breakfast. The current mantra assures that a former soccer player is better prepared to lead a great team than any laboratory, library and dirt field coach, which in itself contains a big lie, but what would professional soccer and the new times be without the big lies Having been a central defender only reinforces a certain idea of argumentative strength, of stainless scaffolding on which to build a project without frills or unattainable pretensions, and Southgate applies this with a perseverance in nothing worthy of admiration.
British football has been colonized for decades by technicians from the old continent who do nothing more than entangle the original conception of the English with tactical concepts and work methodologies that have turned several of their teams into true fun and winning machines. But Southgate resists, like the Gauls in the comic, and with his hand it seems that time has stopped in the days before the invasion of foreign talent, the glorious days of the Wengers, Klopp or Guardiola, the almost imperialist belief of that everything falls under its own weight, which is what Southgate is doing, presenting his matches as a mere question of sums and identities.
It is possible, even probable, that England will end up lifting the cup. In its ranks it lines up several of the great figures of the tournament and it is already known that football continues to be a business of footballers, of guys capable of tearing off any corset and tipping the scales to the most unexpected side. With soloists like Bellingham, Foden, Saka and Kane it is more difficult to lose than to win, which is why there is so much merit in having drawn two of the three games played and cultivating collective distrust as a secret weapon in the face of the upcoming duels, the definitive matches, the dog-faced crosses. “Never explained, never understood,” Wallis Simpson once said of herself. It could be the motto of the Southgate house in case a new disappointment pushes the English team into a kind of game of thrones.
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