England and Gareth Southgate's task is clear: win Euro 2024, no excuses
In Italy the theme for England was clear: carpe diem. Seize the day. There may be 479 of them before the final of the European Championship, in Berlin on July 14 2024, but it is no longer about potential, about development, about earning a place “back at the top table” of world football. That is done.
Instead it comes down to one thing: winning. That means reaching that final and lifting the trophy.
It may not define Gareth Southgate’s eight years as manager – although it will for those who conveniently forget the debacle he inherited after Euro 2016 and Iceland – but it will shape his reign if he departs having taken England closer than they ever have been since 1966 to winning a tournament but still falls short.
There is a new edge to Southgate post-Qatar after effectively changing his mind and continuing as England manager with a fresh determination to at least see out a contract that runs until after those finals in Germany. In fact, he hinted on the eve of facing Italy that he may stay on longer should England win the Euros, and there will be a clamour for him to do so if he does.
It is almost a belligerence that Southgate will do it his way that is evident in his expected team to face Italy away in England’s first qualifier for the Euros and, clearly, the trickiest of the eight fixtures in Group C that also includes Ukraine, North Macedonia and Malta.
As the top two teams qualify, even a defeat by the Italians would not be a disaster, but it would be a huge setback for Southgate and would make the rest of the campaign uncomfortable, raising more questions about whether he is capable of getting England over the line.
Given he had said, after the dust settled following the World Cup quarter-final exit, that he feared his team never “truly believed” they could beat France, another loss against a leading nation would suggest that apparent mental fragility is becoming insurmountable and he is incapable of fixing it.
Southgate is well aware of the importance of this fixture. “In a nutshell it is the type of game we have to start winning. We have over a period but need to do it consistently,” he said.
Defeating Italy away and in Naples, where the Azzurri have not played for 10 years but which, because of its hostility, was chosen as the venue for this fixture, would represent a slice of revenge for the Euro 2020 final defeat on penalties and a step forward in belief. Southgate is deliberately going for the tried and tested. Older heads are needed in the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.
There may be questions raised over the squad but, frankly, who is not here in Italy who should be? Those championing Ben White need to ask why he left the World Cup early, and while Brentford’s Rico Henry is maybe unlucky to miss out, as is AC Milan’s Fikayo Tomori and Brighton’s Solly March, there are no glaring omissions.
Southgate may be accused of not picking on form and the argument certainly has some validity with the expected selection of Harry Maguire and, even more so, Kalvin Phillips, who was barely fit for the World Cup and is still a bit-part player at Manchester City.
But Southgate is determined and, with this team, if they go forward to the Euros, it will possibly be a last hurrah for many of the players as well as the manager. The average age of the side expected to face Italy is 28 and five of those players will be in their thirties – with Kyle Walker 34 – by the time the final is played.
Having gone into his first tournament as England manager, the World Cup in 2018, with the second-youngest squad in Russia and having also coached the second-youngest squad at Euro 2020, Southgate suddenly has an ageing team whose average is brought down dramatically by the presence of two young tyros in Jude Bellingham and Bukayo Saka.
It would suggest that not only is Southgate thinking, after years of concentrating on England’s future, of the here and now and the immediacy of qualifying and then trying to win the Euros, but feels this team is reaching a point of maturity where it can achieve the ultimate prize.
For example, it will not be lost on Southgate that the average age of the Argentina squad who won the World Cup was 27.9 and of the Italians who triumphed at Euro 2020 was 27.8 and that England will therefore be around that age when, hopefully, they arrive in Germany.
Not that England are over the hill, either. This is, arguably, the best XI – apart from one or two questions – since the team who went to Euro 2004 and probably should have won. And that is without Marcus Rashford to come into it, with Reece James, Jordan Henderson and Mason Mount also vying for places.
Roberto Mancini, the Italy coach, called this England squad “extraordinary”. There is no denying its strength and, consequently, there are no excuses now.
