When Gareth Southgate’s England team walk out on to the thrilling green Wembley turf at 7.50pm this evening, they will have already won one kind of victory. Over the past few weeks, they have determinedly demonstrated what our ruling politicians have sought raucously to deny: that patriotism doesn’t have to be rooted in us-and-them division; that genuine national pride is earned through standards and principles, not bought with flags and fibs. And that the strength of our future lies not in a narrowing nostalgia for a whitewashed past, but rather in celebrating an emphatically inclusive present: “Cry God for Harry, Raheem, Declan, Kalvin, England and St George!”
Southgate took over this job during the fractured political autumn of 2016. He talked then of how he was “determined to give everything I have, to give the country a team that they’re proud of and one that they’re going to enjoy watching play and develop”. That managerial platitude revealed a couple of the values that he has stood by in the past five years, values mostly neglected on our national stage. The first is a reflexive understanding that the privilege of power should be measured by what you put in, not what you take out; the second lies in that word “develop”. Sport is an arena of charged moments and milliseconds but, as Southgate’s tenure has shown, its fuller narrative is all about incremental improvement based on sound strategy over months and years.
After Wednesday’s semi-final, the pundit Gary Neville, a former international teammate of the England manager, talked about how “the standards of leaders in this country in the last couple of years have been poor. And looking at that man there, that’s everything a leader should be: respectful, humble, telling the truth, genuine.” Football matters, of course, because it doesn’t matter; but in its minute scrutiny of fraught decision-making there is always a microcosm of wider anxieties. Southgate is faced with a world in which there are 60 million strong opinions – from Roy Keane’s to your newly informed granny’s – on the efficacy of two holding midfielders, or the optimum role for Jack Grealish. As Neville suggests, he has shown that you can win the trust, even of vehement opponents, by having the courage and decency to stand up and explain your tough decisions in as clear a manner as you are able. Grandstanding and bluffing won’t do it; it’s not about you.
Tabloid culture has long demanded footballers be role models, not least so that the young millionaires can be exposed when they inevitably fall short. One of Southgate’s achievements has been to understand how openness and trust could be brought even to that broken relationship. Rather than garrisoning themselves from the media, his squad has been encouraged to be their authentic selves. As the manager said recently, the days when players took a bus to the ground along with their fans may have gone, but that does not mean that these dedicated young men have not all known struggle and doubt and setback. Marcus Rashford’s extraordinary campaigning set the bar for that commitment, but he is far from alone. The heartfelt stories told by Raheem Sterling or Kalvin Phillips of formidable barriers overcome give proper context to the taking of the knee; the public solidarity of Jordan Henderson with LGBTQ fans is no empty gesture; they are statements of what courage and togetherness look like.
In the 55 years since England have contested a significant final, Wembley’s great arc of lights has long replaced the twin towers of the old empire stadium. But many of the same qualities that united that fabled England team of Nobby Stiles and Bobby Moore run through this team too. Southgate’s squad has revived the spirit of that old changing-room commitment: “We win together, and we lose together.” Let’s hope that this time, more than any other time, they can find a way to make it the former.
