Is It Ever Coming Home?

As the Euros kick off in Germany tonight, it reminds you that the English may have invented association football, but the rest of the world turned it into the beautiful game. And that has become all the more evident in our national team's history of disappointing near misses, terrible performances, and a country that became utterly disillusioned with their national sport at an international level.

In 2018, however, that long and gorgeous summer, that seemed to change. It was a semi-final defeat again, but it was different. The entire country was behind the team and fans walked away with pride, hoping next time we would bring home a trophy too.

May I offer a wild reading of the England team's success and failures in the past? It seems like a metaphor for our national identity. We were once a far bigger player on the world stage. We were once better at football. Now we're not. We accept that we aren't what we once were and that's fair.

Perhaps the guilt over the morals of some of the nation's historical actions such as imperialism plays a role in this. Even so, it shatters national identity and pride. But 2018 offered hope. Our stiff upper lip had been tried and tested so much since 1966 and was on the brink of crumbling away, but what Gareth Southgate and his team seemed to recognise was that this could be beaten through patience and quiet determination. Southgate, for all his flaws, remains calm and sporting in defeat and victory, representing English values that are respectable and the stuff we should hold onto. And a man who understands these things all too well having missed that crucial penalty himself in Euro 96. I think it's fair to say he became a national treasure in 2018, with waistcoat sales rocketing and fans all over the country singing his name.

And the team that he subsequently led to the finals in the 2020 Euros (which took place in 2021), featured a squad that represented the England of today. Many players were descended from Commonwealth countries. And I thought maybe this realisation of a new identity had awoken a rebirth in Englishness for the modern age. This is something Southgate definitely understood in his appeals for harmony in the face of some ugly political rifts that resulted in some decidedly unsporting behaviour by certain fans early in the competition. Despite penalty shoot-out heartbreak again, as I watched from my home, as I was isolating due to the virus, I did think that, for the most part, this man and his team, in an age of such political divide and confusion, only intensified by the threat of COVID, had brought us together as a nation.

It was a brief window, a glimmer of hope, and then we returned to being a divided and disappointing nation. I suppose that patience and quiet determination hadn't exactly been the appropriate approach against the Azzurri, and then of course there was the inevitable 'fans' who decided to be racist towards the players and display that ugly side once more. What followed was a disappointing and forgettable World cup campaign, taking place in winter due to the madness of the modern game, with Harry Kane missing a crucial penalty to see us knocked out by France in the quarters. And, rightly so I guess, questions being asked about Southgate and the future.

Moving forward, we are about to enter this competition on the back of a friendly defeat to Iceland at Wembley no less. This harked back to the England we knew before 2018, getting knocked out of the Euros by the same team in 2016. And what we seemed to have was a group of players who couldn’t seem to click.

But the competition hasn't started. On paper, England have a team who really could win the Euros, and I've already seen rumours that Southgate's Grandad cardigans are to be the waistcoats of 2024 (makes sense if Germany's summer is anything like the one we're getting in the UK).

But why do I find myself leaning towards the school of thought that rather than a young and hungry squad of untapped potential, with Southgate moving on somewhat from the favouritism he has been accused of, we may have taken a gamble on an inexperienced, mismatched team who can't unlock their talent on the international stage? Well, because that's just England being English. It's as if we're destined to never quite figure it out, and just keep plodding along awkwardly like we do everyday as a nation.

I hope one day we'll figure out our identity, but I can't see it being any time soon. I just really don't believe it's in our nature to be successful anymore. Is that because I'm English? Probably. Let's hope I'm wrong (I bet I'm not).