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England and France began the men’s European football championships with victories, both 1-0, against Serbia and against Austria. They were two not overly convincing matches, but perhaps precisely for this reason they demonstrated the reason why England and France are considered the two main favorites for the final victory, and that is their ability to win without necessarily having to propose a very elaborate and spectacular game , relying almost solely on the exceptional talent of their players.
Especially between midfield and attack, England have some of the best players of the last European season. 20-year-old Jude Bellingham, who scored the decisive goal against Serbia, comes off a season in which he won La Liga and the Champions League with Real Madrid, totaling 24 goals and 11 assists and redefining the role of all-rounder, of a footballer capable of being decisive in almost all areas of the pitch. Playing alongside him against Serbia were Phil Foden, awarded best player of the last Premier League with Manchester City (he finished the championship with 19 goals and 8 assists), Harry Kane, 44 goals in 45 games with Bayern Munich , and Bukayo Saka, 20 goals and 14 assists this season with Arsenal.
After playing well in the first half hour, during which they scored the opening goal, England dropped significantly and allowed Serbia to grow and come close to equalising. It is a tendency that the English national team has shown other times in the past, as the specialized site wrote The Athletic: «There are many things that Southgate has changed for the better in the last seven and a half years, but there are still many occasions when, after taking control of a game, his team gradually loses the initiative, drops and finds itself to plod along in an unconvincing way.” A similar thing happened in the final of the last European Championships: England took the lead against Italy after two minutes, but over time their intensity reduced and in the end they lost on penalties, after conceding the equalizer from Leonardo Bonucci .
The 2021 European Championship final was a big disappointment for England, who lost at home on penalties to Italy: the English national team has only won one major tournament, the 1966 World Cup (John Sibley-Pool/Getty Images)
Gareth Southgate has been coaching England since the autumn of 2016 and in recent years the national team has undoubtedly improved, becoming one of the most highly rated in the world. Soutghate managed to bring together a generation of very strong footballers by creating a cohesive group and bringing back enthusiasm among English fans, obtaining quite positive results: in 2018 England reached the semi-finals of the World Cup, in 2021 they lost the European Championships in the final against Italy and in 2022 he came out in the quarter-finals of the World Cup against France.
In general, however, it always seemed that something was missing to be able to win a major tournament and the most critics believe that Southgate has so far not managed to make the most of the team’s potential, proposing a wait-and-see and not very courageous game, based on minimizing the risks. England has perhaps never had a team as strong as today’s (players like Jack Grealish, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho were not even called up) and Southgate knows that everything is at stake in these European Championships: «If I don’t win, it’s likely that I won’t be here anymore: this could be my last chance,” he said recently.
Gareth Southgate, 53, has managed England since 2016 (Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)
In some ways a similar argument can also be made for France and Didier Deschamps, who together won the 2018 World Cup and lost the 2022 World Cup in the final on penalties. The impression, however, is that a team with that talent could play much better. In its Gguide to France published before the European Championships, the sports site Last Man he wrote that «no team seems to realize the utopia of a group of players who win more than France because, simply, they are stronger, one by one, than their opponents».
Against Austria, the French national team had two midfielders on the bench who usually start for Real Madrid (Eduardo Camavinga and Aurélien Tchouaméni) and then players such as Olivier Giroud, Kingsley Coman, Warren Zaïre-Emery, Randal Kolo Muani and Benjamin Pavard, who they would probably be starters in almost every other team participating in the European Championships. Even more than England, France often bases its game on the extemporaneous initiatives of its strongest players, above all Kylian Mbappé, but also Antoine Griezmann, and on the ability to win duels with the opponents (they are two very strong national teams even from physical and athletic point of view).
In their debut match at the European Championships, France won 1-0 against Austria thanks to an own goal by Maximilian Wöber (Lars Baron/Getty Images)
So far, France has done pretty well this way. At the last European Championships, however, the national team coached by Deschamps made a surprise exit in the round of 16, in a rather incredible match against Switzerland, in which they took a 3-1 lead but were then recovered, finally losing on penalties. «France arrived at that European Championship as reigning world champions and were eliminated in the round of 16 by committing a sin of pride. Because she thought she had already won, that it was her destiny or that it was due to her”, we read again in theLast Man.
For France and England the greatest danger is precisely thinking that having the strongest players is enough to win matches. On some occasions it is actually sufficient, but as the competition progresses it could become a risk, especially when there are more complicated matches against stronger and more tactically prepared opponents. If, when that time comes, Didier Deschamps and Gareth Southgate manage to raise the level of their teams’ play, then France and England will remain the two main favorites to win the final. Otherwise, talent may not be enough.
