Now that Gareth Southgate sits in the Blankenhain base talking about how England might win a European Championship final, he can make an admission. “There was a danger”, as he puts it, that this Euro 2024 campaign and his entire managerial tenure could have unravelled. There was certainly a risk of the “doom and gloom” engulfing the squad.
“But,” Southgate adds, “I was determined to confront it.” That went way beyond walking towards the beer cups being thrown after the 0-0 draw with Slovenia, although he still feels that was crucial “because we fought too hard to change the environment for the players”. More important was to actually work through what was going wrong - “a coaching challenge. That wasn’t necessarily on the training ground.” It involved showing the players what they were actually doing on video, and comparing it to their instructions. There was also just a photo.
