On the eve of Euro 2024, two national teams were quite universally considered favorites for the final victory: France, vice-world champion, with Mbappé, Griezmann, Theo Hernández, Camavinga and Tchouaméni, and England with Bellingham, Foden, Kane, Saka, Palmer and so on and so forth. Coach Gareth Southgate could and can count on an abundance of attacking talent almost never seen across the Channel, with the right mix between freshness and experience, between leadership (let’s not forget the impact Bellingham born in 2003 had this year in his first season at Santiago Bernabéu) and exuberance. In the first three games, however, none of this was seen.
Yes, England – unlike France – still qualified as first, and on Sunday 30 June at 6pm they will face one of the best third-placed teams in the round of 16, with the prospect of a quarter-final with the winner between Switzerland and Italy. Yet they did it with just five points, the result of a win and two draws, with two goals scored and one conceded. And so perhaps we need to reverse the point of view to comment on the adventure of Southgate’s men so far, and start from the defence: England is highlighting itself as a solid, compact team, which concedes very little, and in the face of a phase limping offensively is the national team that has conceded the fewest xG in these European Championships so far (expected goals) to its opponents: just 1.1 in 270 minutes.
Of course, this doesn’t completely hide the problems, especially up front. Statistics, in fact, always guide us through the apathy of the English possession phase: the BBC wrote that Bellingham and his teammates are the 19th team out of 24 for xG created (2.26) and the 17th for number of shots on target played in the tournament (29 in three matches), while the data reported by the is even more interesting Telegraph (source Stats Perform), according to which England are absolutely the worst team of Euro 2024 (24th out of 24) due to the speed with which they attack. His ball possession is slow, sterile and boring, with Slovenia he exceeded 70% but allowed him to create very little (as if it were a more defensive tactic than anything else; «England currently seems like a team that fears the consequences of lose the ball”, he also wrote Telegraph, here we return to solidity). The ball, at the feet of the English players, travels at an average of 1.24 meters per second, a speed slower than even all 20 teams in the latest Premier League.
“England have Cole Palmer, Bukayo Saka, Jude Bellingham, Kobbie Mainoo and Phil Foden, huge, enormous talents, and we can’t afford to mismanage them,” commented Gary Neville on television network ITV after last night’s 0-0 draw . It is a very specific criticism of Gareth Southgate, who at the end of the match was the target of whistles and glasses of beer thrown by his own compatriots in the stands (“An unusual environment is being created in which to operate”, the coach then said in the conference press), but it is not a thought that unites all the main English commentators. As often happens, in fact, Jamie Carragher thinks differently than Neville, and on Telegraph he put the blame primarily on the players: «The tactical decisions taken so far by the coach can be discussed – he wrote – […] but they weren’t scandalous at all. Foden played wide for the majority of his career at Manchester City. He has been playing in the same position for England for four years and has never replicated his club’s form. Bellingham is playing in the same position he played in all season with Real Madrid, winning the Champions League, but let’s be honest: in the last two games he has been anonymous. […] The best performances from England’s stars so far have been in pre-match interviews. […] As coach, Southgate will take responsibility if predictions of impending doom prove correct. To prevent this from happening, however, players must ask themselves this question: “Am I playing at my best level?”. And if the honest answer is no, is it really the fault of the coach’s tactics?
