Gareth Southgate is 90 minutes away from fulfilling his eight-year objective to “win the respect of the football world” with a victory over Spain in Sunday’s EURO 2024 final, which would finally land England on the big screen highlights reel. Southgate held his penultimate press conference of the tournament in the bowels of Berlin’s Olympiastadion, just over 24 hours before his squad takes the field in search of another major trophy to add to their 1966 World Cup victory. The ’58 years of hurt’ that followed Wembley success were characterized by a pattern of exaggerated expectations followed by tremendous disappointment, and Southgate believed that the boom and bust was a self-perpetuating cycle.
“We tried to change the mindset from the start, we’ve tried to be more honest about where we were as a football nation,” according to him. “I’ve been to World Cups and European Championships and watched highlights reels before matches on enormous screens, but we weren’t in any of them since they only show the finals. So we had to adjust it. “We had big expectations, but they didn’t meet our performance level. The high expectations remain, but we have delivered consistent performances in three of the last four events.
England has been a slow starter in this tournament, only really lighting fire in the semi-final triumph over the Netherlands, when they finally provided an offensive display befitting of their pre-season favourites moniker. “We’ve had to find a different way of playing as the tournament progressed,” Southgate informed the crowd. “When we came in we had a lot of issues, particularly at the back, a lot of players who missed a lot of football towards the end of the season.”We’ve been trying to find the proper blend and balance for our attacking players since we have a lot of great skill but many of them want to operate in the same areas. “We believe we have started to establish that equilibrium.
We’ve looked threatening, like we could score again, and I’m pleased with the team’s performance heading into this game.” Southgate played, and missed the deciding penalty, when Germany defeated England in the semi-finals en route to victory at Wembley Stadium in EURO 96, but he argued it was not fate for England to have the opportunity to win the title on German soil. “I do not believe in fairy tales. “I believe in dreams,” he remarked. “We had huge dreams, but you have to battle for them.
“Of sure, that would be a wonderful story, but we must provide a performance. You have to be in the late stages of a tournament to learn how to win those huge games, and we are learning that. We’ve been through a number of big nights recently. “I’m not afraid of what will happen tomorrow because I’ve gone through it all before. I want the players to be courageous because if we’re not afraid of losing, we have a better chance of winning. England’s turnaround under Southgate, following their stunning defeat by Iceland at EURO 2016, has resulted in back-to-back Euro finals, as well as a semi-final and quarter-final at the World Cup.
It’s a fantastic record of consistency that no other European team or previous England manager has been able to equal, but Southgate understands better than anybody that “success” will mean nothing if they don’t cross the finish line on Sunday. “A lot of records have been broken,” he told me. “But we know we have to, we have to do this one, we have to get this trophy to really feel the respect of the rest of the football world.”
