Few teams can ride the crest of a glorious wave without getting wet along the way. Gareth Southgate’s England are no exception.
There were a few turning points on their journey to Berlin.
We know Jude Bellingham’s Roy of the Rovers moment at the death against Slovakia. We know Bukayo Saka’s sweet pearl delivered with his left foot a game later against Switzerland. Without these things, Southgate and his team would now be on the beach. No glory, no love, no thanks. Only failure. Sometimes in tournament football, the margins are so small.
And what about our opponents? They also missed moments to impale us.
With Gelsenkirchen trailing 1-0, a horrendous mistake between Kyle Walker and John Stones gave the ball to Slovakian David Strelec. With Jordan Pickford off his line, Strelec chipped from 25 yards towards an empty net – and missed. Would England have overturned a 2-0 deficit? Probably not.
Gareth Southgate opted to bring on teenage midfielder Kobbie Mainoo at half-time in England’s final group match
England have had a few turning points at Euro 2024, including Jude Bellingham’s spectacular bicycle kick against Slovakia in the last 16.
Bukayo Saka’s stunning strike against Switzerland also kept England in the tournament
But Southgate’s decision to place his faith in Mainoo has been his bravest and has turned the English tournament around
Then, in the final minute of regulation time in Düsseldorf, a Swiss cross from the right seemed destined to land on the head of the unmarked Dan Ndoye at the far post, but his own team-mate Breel Embolo ahead of him saved the ball from him with a light but utterly decisive touch. Meanwhile, in the closing stages, Xherdan Shaqiri hit the crossbar from a corner.
All big moments. Moments that shape tournaments, help change stories and ultimately define careers.
But none of these events can match what happened at half-time in Cologne, after Southgate had watched his team suffer so desperately for 45 minutes against Slovenia in their last Group C match.
That was the day of the plastic beer cups. The day Southgate approached his team’s supporters on a full-time basis and returned to the dressing room with a half pint of Carlsberg on his brogues.
It was probably the most forgettable game of England’s forgettable group stage. A glance at the stats now shows that there were five shots in total in the game. Suffice to say, none of them ever looked like they were going in.
But it was also the day Southgate first looked at young Kobbie Mainoo and told him to strip down. And in retrospect, that remains the most remarkable decision the England manager made during those four long weeks in Germany.
It seems a long time ago that Southgate paired Trent Alexander-Arnold with Declan Rice in games one and two. It didn’t work. The Liverpool player was substituted both times and for the Slovenia game he was replaced by Conor Gallagher. That didn’t work either.
As English football slowly transformed from a disappointing performance into a strange form of self-harm, Gallagher was substituted at half-time and replaced by Mainoo, the young midfielder from Manchester United.
Southgate tried Trent Alexander-Arnold in midfield for England’s first two games but it didn’t work
He turned to Conor Gallagher for the third match, but he was caught at half-time
Southgate has since followed Mainoo and the Man United midfielder has gone from strength to strength, producing his best performance in Wednesday’s semi-final against the Netherlands.
Southgate took his time to find a solution to his midfield problem but he deserves credit for taking a gamble on Mainoo that has paid off.
And that was it. That was the solution. That was the way forward. That was the piece of the midfield jigsaw that Southgate had been searching for since injuries and poor form robbed him of Kalvin Phillips and Jordan Henderson in the weeks and months leading up to the tournament.
The upturn in England’s performance wasn’t immediate. They were desperate against Slovakia and, frankly, deserved to lose. But in that particular area of the pitch, England were better when Mainoo got involved and the 19-year-old’s influence has grown steadily since then.
There have been some memorably fantastic individual moments from Bellingham, Saka and now Ollie Watkins against the Netherlands, but Mainoo is England’s best and most consistent player.
It is fair to say that Southgate threw him into the team against his better judgement. He always feared that England would be too open defensively with Mainoo in the team. The England manager feels that the youngster’s most natural instinct is to look forward and move.
Nevertheless, part of management is realizing when you’ve made a mistake. It’s having the presence and self-awareness to know that the path you’ve chosen to take is the wrong one and that it’s time to take a detour.
As it turned out, Southgate had to make two such decisions. He admitted the Alexander-Arnold selection was a gamble and dropped it. Then he dropped Gallagher after just one half of football.
At that point it all seemed more like a manager who didn’t really have an answer to a problem he’d known about for a while, and maybe he did. Southgate and England got there in the end, and that’s really all that matters.
Rice watches Mainoo up close in the heart of England’s midfield and likes what he sees. The two players occasionally bicker when a game gets tense and Rice likes that. He likes the younger player’s confidence, his guts. Mainoo plays like that too.
He is not usually vocally expressive or even in his mannerisms. But almost everything he does involves a progressive thought or movement and that is perhaps the one thing he has brought to this England team and what they so desperately needed.
Mainoo has formed a promising partnership with Declan Rice in England’s midfield
Mainoo played with confidence, had the ball and tried to make something happen
When a good opening against Serbia had fizzled out three and a half weeks ago, far too much of what England did was slow, predictable and backward. Mainoo helped change that.
He has played with the confidence that sometimes only youth can give a player, ignoring the hesitation and fear evident in his teammates’ actions and football to break lines, play forward quickly and run into areas where things can go wrong but can also work to your advantage.
A year ago, we knew nothing about the lad from Stockport. If his emergence into the English midfield in Germany was a result of other players’ shortcomings, it certainly was during last year’s Premier League grind at Old Trafford.
The Euro 2024 final against Spain on Sunday will present Mainoo with his biggest challenge yet. Spanish midfielders Rodri and Fabian Ruiz are a step or two above any opponent Mainoo has faced in this tournament.
Thanks in part to him, England managed to gain more possession against Switzerland and then the Netherlands. Against Spain it will not be so easy and in the Olympiastadion in the German capital Mainoo will probably face the biggest challenge of his career.
Mainoo will face Fabian Ruiz (left) and Rodri (right) in the final on Sunday, the toughest test of his young career
But so far he has always given his best and played a key role in England’s run to the final.
England are lucky to have him. Southgate has shown a worrying lack of flexibility in the early stages of this tournament. Despite his team’s progress to the final, he has not always been at his best. He has often been too reactive when we need the opposite of him.
But when he told Mainoo – his fourth-choice central midfielder – to get ready in the dressing room in Cologne on June 25, Southgate made one of the most important decisions of his eight-year tenure as national coach.
In doing so, he gave purpose and attitude to the hitherto strong England team and unleashed another young English superstar upon the world.
It would be a surprise if Mainoo spends too much time looking back from this point on.