England manager Gareth Southgate has announced his resignation following his side’s defeat in the European Championship final against Spain. Southgate took charge of England in 2016 and has led them to two European Championship finals (both defeats) and the World Cup semi-finals in 2018.
On the road to the Euro final, Gareth Southgate was the subject of criticism and had to modify systems (4-2-3-1, 4-3-3 and 3-4-2-1) and players to try to improve England’s poor play throughout the tournament. Of his six games, only the first half of the opener against Serbia, a mere 15-minute stretch in the quarter-final against Switzerland and the first 45 minutes of the semi-final against the Netherlands could be described as passable.
England tried to dominate matches by having a high level of ball possession (58.8%, the third in the championship and slightly higher than Spain’s 57.6%), but they were timid, until they reached the final of the European Championship and fell out of the fight for the title again. That was the end of Southgate as coach.
The rule of not taking risks in passing has made England a predictable and blunt team. Their football has had such low peaks that the English fans themselves threw beer and booed Southgate and his players after the draw against Denmark (1-1) in the last game of the group stage. Jude Bellingham, with his miraculous bicycle kick in the last minute against Slovakia in the round of 16, avoided the catastrophe. Since that game in which Foden confessed that he saw himself at home “bottle-feeding” his newborn son, England has gone from less to better, but without rounding off a complete performance.
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