Seems to be the running trend of our nation going back to the 90s that we love "the glorious failure". 1990, 1996, 2018 and now 2021. We get to the brink of doing something brilliant at a tournament, choke in some predictable fashion, but after the loss there are no real inquests, no real debate over how and why, but a lot of patting each other on the back and saying "well done boys, you'll do better next time". The problem is there's absolutely no guarantee we do better next time.
I can't help but feel these past two tournaments were a golden opportunity. I think it's relatively likely we would have lost to France in the final of 2018, but not certain, and even just making it would have stood us in better stead for the final of this tournament, which was the real prize with so much of it being played at Wembley. This time around, we made the final, we even took the lead, and Italy's equaliser only came from the scrappiest opportunity of the game. And Pickford pulled off two great saves in the shootout. We literally came within a whisker of winning this. I don't think it's good enough to simply say we were outplayed, because it was well within our grasp to win it. We had enough opportunities in the first half, added time and on penalties to have clinched it at any moment. But most people seem to be happy with what happened and conceded it was just "bad luck", rather than tactical or individual errors.
If we get to Qatar 2022 and pull off a similar level of performance we might be able to say we're building a new level of consistency for England where we could legitimately expect to make the semis at least at all of the next few tournaments. But, alternatively, I worry that the attitude of simply being content to finish 2nd-4th place could ruin us in the end. Do other major footballing nations do this, or is it simply an English thing since we have had so many years without even competing for a final? Sadly if we don't develop a killer winning mentality, our new golden generation could end up more like Belgium's - constantly falling at the final few hurdles, until they age out of contention without a trophy to show for it.
I can't help but feel these past two tournaments were a golden opportunity. I think it's relatively likely we would have lost to France in the final of 2018, but not certain, and even just making it would have stood us in better stead for the final of this tournament, which was the real prize with so much of it being played at Wembley. This time around, we made the final, we even took the lead, and Italy's equaliser only came from the scrappiest opportunity of the game. And Pickford pulled off two great saves in the shootout. We literally came within a whisker of winning this. I don't think it's good enough to simply say we were outplayed, because it was well within our grasp to win it. We had enough opportunities in the first half, added time and on penalties to have clinched it at any moment. But most people seem to be happy with what happened and conceded it was just "bad luck", rather than tactical or individual errors.
If we get to Qatar 2022 and pull off a similar level of performance we might be able to say we're building a new level of consistency for England where we could legitimately expect to make the semis at least at all of the next few tournaments. But, alternatively, I worry that the attitude of simply being content to finish 2nd-4th place could ruin us in the end. Do other major footballing nations do this, or is it simply an English thing since we have had so many years without even competing for a final? Sadly if we don't develop a killer winning mentality, our new golden generation could end up more like Belgium's - constantly falling at the final few hurdles, until they age out of contention without a trophy to show for it.
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