Italy won the World Cup in 1982 and Portugal the Euros in 2016 after drawing all three games in the initial group. Spain in 2010 and Argentina in 2022 both began their World Cup-winning campaigns with defeat. This year, Ivory Coast lost group games 1-0 to Nigeria and 4-0 to Equatorial Guinea, qualified for the last 16 only because Ghana conceded twice in injury time against Mozambique and still went on to win the Africa Cup of Nations.
Only Brazil, in 2002, have won seven games out of seven at a major tournament. It is possible for a team that has begun poorly to win it. But just because something is possible, doesn’t mean that’s how you should do things. Tournaments are short; average teams sometimes can be mysteriously energised. England haven’t ticked a box by getting in a couple of bad performances when it didn’t really matter. Planning tends to win out over shrugging and hoping for the best.
That’s why the performance against Denmark was so alarming. England were far from good against Slovenia but there was a qualitative difference from the Denmark draw. At least against Slovenia, once England had got over a distinctly edgy first 20 minutes it was a familiar form of bad, the sort of flatness that has become familiar from the poorer performances.
England have produced in tournaments under Gareth Southgate. But there was some structure, there were occasional glimmers of positivity and England, without ever looking in danger of conceding, might have pinched a 1-0 win. It may have been almost unwatchable, but it’s at least not inconceivable that a team could progress from that in a couple of weeks to the sort of performance that does win tournaments.
That was not the case in the draw against Denmark, when there was a worrying sense fans had their England back; it wasn’t just that it was incoherent, it was that England seemed morally broken, incapacitated by a characteristic blend of ego and dread, struggling to play 10 yards passes at half-pace.
Ivory Coast are a poor precedent because they were so bad they ended up sacking their manager before the knockouts; that really did feel like a triumph born of randomness and defiance. But Italy in 1982, Spain in 2010, Portugal in 2016 and Argentina in 2022 all had a basic system in place; they all needed just a couple of tweaks, a player to catch light, to move from their poor start to glory. Squint at the draw with Slovenia and in a good light you might just about glimpse a sense of structure.
Small changes can have profound effects; for all the criticism of the lack of width on the left, Kieran Trippier played at left-back when England outplayed Italy at Wembley in qualifying. Eight of that side, in fact, started against Serbia in the first game of the tournament, although Phil Foden was on the right rather than Bukayo Saka with Marcus Rashford on the left. Marc Guéhi has replaced the injured Harry Maguire, while Kalvin Phillips’s form made him unselectable even before injury intervened. As Southgate acknowledged, England have struggled to replace him; given how little Phillips has played over the past two years, that England are still scrabbling around for a solution seems like negligence.
It’s a rare failure of planning for a manager whose meticulousness has been his key virtue. It’s understandable Southgate is reluctant to make radical changes now – the calls to switch to a 3-4-3 or to use Saka as a left-back seem implausible – but would it have been impossible at some point, particularly once it became apparent that there was a shortage of left-footed left-backs, to try a 4-3-3? In that formation, rather than the full-backs advancing, John Stones would step into midfield in possession, creating the 3-2 trapezoid shape Pep Guardiola uses to guard against the counter, with Jude Bellingham and Foden in effect inside-forwards, with pace and width on either flank to burst beyond Kane through Saka (or Cole Palmer) and Rashford (or, given his absence, Anthony Gordon or possibly Eberechi Eze).
That would also mitigate the issue that Trippier cannot overlap on the left because he has always to check back on to his right foot. But that would require Bellingham to revert to something like role he had before moving to Real Madrid, before the anachronistic idea of building the team around him took hold, and is also predicated on Kane being fit, which he seems not to be, and Rashford being in form, which he has not been for months. That is where it can be seen how multiple minor issues have compounded, creating the sense of incoherence and eventually panic that gripped England against Denmark.
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Instead, the lack of balance has magnified problems for which Southgate cannot really be blamed: Kane’s back injury, Rashford’s loss of form and the weariness of Saka and Bellingham. Perhaps Kobbie Mainoo’s effervescence will stimulate the midfield, but England’s openness when he and Rice were paired at the back of midfield against Iceland is a concern and the past two weeks have shown he is Southgate’s third-choice for the role.
Slovakia, certainly, will sense an opportunity. Under Francesco Calzona, they have become a progressive side far removed from the dour plodders of previous tournaments, which may give England a little more space and make them look a little more incisive. Not that it worked for Belgium, who have at times in this tournament looked distinctly English in their lethargy and lack of cohesion.
At the same time, though, England will have to beware the forward surges of the full-backs, David Hancko and Peter Pekarik; there will be tracking for the wide forwards to do, which might be a case to stick with Saka over Cole Palmer from the start. And Ivan Schranz’s goals against Belgium and Ukraine suggest Trippier (assuming Luke Shaw is not fit enough to start) may have more defensive work to do than previously.
Is it possible England could become serious challengers at this tournament? Ivory Coast showed anything is possible and England are not in such a bad state as they were. But if you were looking to win the tournament, you wouldn’t start from here.