I keep thinking about the guys who left early. You could see them sliding out of their seats, shuffling down the concourses, tutting and harrumphing all the way to the deserted tram terminus. Thinking uncharitable thoughts about Gareth Southgate, Gelsenkirchen, life in general. Looking forward to a smooth return journey and a glass of one of the Ruhr region’s frothier brews. And then, suddenly, hearing a noise over their shoulders, and realising with a deathly chill that they screwed up.
And before we all point and laugh, how many England fans – here, at home, out, wherever – were mentally taking their first step on the same journey of dissociation and detachment? How many of us, at some point during that game, spiritually checked out of the England football team as an entity? If sticking with a team is essentially an act of pure faith, yoking your time and happiness to forces beyond control or understanding, then on what basis, as the ball sails out of play for an England throw in the 94th minute, could that faith be remotely justified?
Short answer: none. This was over. All the runes led us rationally to this point. The obituaries and poison letters had already been written. “The greatest day in the history of Slovakian football,” I had typed out on the very same Word document in which I’m now writing this embarrassing piece of revisionism. “We need to dwell on this before we get on to the ritual flagellation, partly out of a basic sporting respect, but also because it’s worth remembering that other nations are also allowed to be good at football.”
This was done. There could be no way back from here. Slovakia were 20 points ahead in the polls. Everyone was speculating about who Slovakia might appoint to their cabinet. The only real point of contention was whether England, for so long the natural party of uninspiring tournament last-16 victories, would even finish in second place in this game.
And so, as Milan Skriniar boots the ball over the line and jogs back into position, the ornate scaffolding of England humiliation has already been mostly assembled. The WhatsApp groups are going toxic. The boos from the England fans that have been unleashed in sporadic bursts are tuning up for one final grand concerto. Disgusted of YouTube is already weighing up the merits of Graham Potter versus Eddie Howe to a live seven-figure audience.
Meanwhile, Southgate is preparing to throw on Ivan Toney. Let’s generously assume this wasn’t a change Southgate had planned in advance, in the same way it probably wasn’t a plan to have Bukayo Saka and Eberechi Eze as wing-backs. Certainly the surprise on Phil Foden’s face, hooked just as he’s preparing to come short to meet Kyle Walker’s throw-in, suggests as much. “You don’t know what you’re doing,” a few England fans start singing.
Is it pure luck, what happens next? Does Jude Bellingham simply enact the Mandate of Heaven? Is it the inevitable product of England’s gradually ratcheting pressure in the closing minutes? Does the wildcard arrival of Toney in the penalty area tip the scales from confusion to chaos? Does the late switch to 4-4-2 awaken some ancient English tribal energy? Is there any way of making sense of an event so unfathomable, so violently bereft of logic? Or do you simply have to lean into the illogic, let it wash over you like holy water?
Let’s talk about Bellingham for a bit. The Bellingham who famously doesn’t turn up in big games, and – to be honest – didn’t really turn up for most of this one. Who can’t possibly be fully fit. Who spent his evening raging at the fates, raging at his teammates, drifting and hiding, like a man trying to sneak past the bouncers. Like a player on a computer game where only a few of the buttons work.
And yet this is also the player who won two clásicos by himself, in the 91st and 92nd minutes, a player of such effortless gift and self-belief that when the ball gets flicked on, there is no thought process involved, no panoply of choices, no consideration given to bringing the ball down or heading it or laying it off: just a single course of action fleetingly presenting itself. It’s England’s first shot on target all night.
The temptation here is to present this act of individual genius as the ultimate rebuke to Southgate‑ism: a final spectacular vindication of the doctrine of abandon, of simply throwing your brilliant players together and letting them do brilliant things. But it was also Southgate who left Bellingham on, Southgate who zippily switched things up in the second half, Southgate who threw on Toney, who in turn – by occupying Norbert Gyomber at the near post – created the space for Bellingham to pounce.
Perhaps the only real lesson here is that tournament football is not a game of percentages. There are no points for effort. Luck does not even itself out. England were the better team against France in 2022, the better team against Germany in 1996, tried valiantly to hold on to what they had against Italy in 2021 and Croatia in 2018. In the end, you do or you do not. And somehow, the only way of finding out which is simply to ride this thing to the end. Faith, against all the available evidence. Faith, in the absence of anything better. Faith, the greatest act of daring there is.
