It was a sad moment when Harry Kane had to leave the pitch in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium half an hour before the end of the European Championship final. The goalscorer without impact, the leader of the English, who was not one and who could not lead a largely uninspired team to the big title, left the pitch with dignity despite the drama. The sad charm of failure is once again the consolation prize for the English, who were once again unable to put the curse of Wembley behind them.
And maybe it’s a good thing. Now they’re attacking Gareth Southgate, Kane and co. on the island. That was to be expected, but if they had won it would have been even more unbearable. Many Englishmen think they’re the greatest in football anyway, and if they had achieved real greatness with a title, the rest of the football world would have been threatened with a wave of arrogance. And, even more importantly: in the interests of the sport, you can’t become European champions with the kind of football that Southgate had them play.
If the uninspired English style of controlled football had prevailed, it would not have been a worthy conclusion to a European Championship.
In terms of attack, there was little to celebrate in the knockout rounds anyway, and apart from the penalty shootouts, the standard result of 2:1 was the highest goal feeling. Few goals are standard in these tournaments, but let’s imagine that we had to endure that every weekend in the leagues, sometimes a 3:1, a 4:2 or more, games with more than one twist, are what make football so appealing.
Spain deserved to win, not with many goals, but with a lot of attacking power. Compared to the 2010 World Cup title, when the Spanish almost always won 1-0, that was more. There is no need to worry about the future of this new generation of successes; a dynasty similar to the one from 2008 to 2012, when Spain won three titles in a row, could follow.
What will happen to the national team in England in the future is more exciting. It really couldn’t be more of a failure.