For the last month, across much of the continent, the Euros have been a space of public revelry and political messaging. Huge carnivalesque crowds have gathered from Berlin to Amsterdam, from Copenhagen to Tbilisi. In the latter, where bitter divisions over Georgia’s relationship to Russia and the EU have been raging, both sides have used the national team’s amazing run as a platform. Many members of the squad have indicated their opposition to the current government and its pro-Russian sentiments on social media, while fans chanted, “Putin is a dickhead” at their game against Turkey. By the same token, the ruling party, Georgian Dream, has sought to co-opt footballing success, promising huge rewards to the squad.
In the stadiums in Germany, right-wing nationalist ultras have displayed the flags and borders of a Greater Albania (including Kosovo), a Greater Serbia (also including Kosovo) and a Greater Romania, while the black-shirted phalanx of the Hungarian Carpathian Brigade, avatars of Orbán’s nativist populism, have been an aggressive presence at their games. By contrast, the French squad, overwhelmingly with migrant heritage, have been very public in their rejection of the far right, calling on the public not to vote for extremists in the country’s snap general election.
In England, however, the mood has been subdued. The weather has played a part, as the endless drizzle and showers have deterred all but the most hardy outdoor viewers. St George’s Crosses on show on homes and cars have been few and far between. The torrent of memes and viral videos of “it’s coming home”, at fever pitch by this time in previous tournaments, have been absent. Similarly, direct references to politics among England fans have been rare, no more than a few Farage face masks and stop-the-boats chants. The culture-war brigade and online racists have been almost invisible.
The Euros have taken on a political hue in the past. In 2016, three days after the EU referendum, England fans chanted, “We’re all leaving Europe!” as the team themselves departed the Euros after a calamitous defeat to Iceland. England’s journey to the Euro 2020 finals was accompanied by a rising mania that paralleled the dismantling of Covid regulations, peaking in the toxic masculine, narcotic-soaked storming of Wembley stadium. In 2022, the Lionesses’ victory briefly offered a glimpse of a different version of the English nation – one that could play and beat the Germans without a single reference to the Second World War.
In fact, football’s political potential has been, until the quarter-finals, mobilised for domestic politics. It is remarkable how often, and in how many guises, football was a feature of the general election. Both Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak chose numerous football clubs as locations for photo-opportunities and meet-and-greets. Sunak’s hapless dribbling at Chesham United was just one of his many avoidable gaffes. Football featured as a policy issue – the Lib Dems promised more free-to-air Premier League games, and everyone supported the creation of an independent football regulator. The Sun’s declaration for Labour was in football terms, the front-page headline set against a floodlit stadium, saying it was time for a change of manager, but not Gareth Southgate.
All this was what Southgate refers to as “the noise”. Something deeper and quieter has been at work. In the early rounds of the tournament, as the general election ground on, the team’s torpor and exhaustion spoke, and not kindly, to the English nation, making the group stages a strange allegory of a washed-out and overworked society, desperately waiting for the Tories to depart. At the same time, the demands for less caution and more flair – “taking off the handbrake” – remind us of the reckless dimension of our appalling performative political culture that Brexit brought into being, by overestimating our importance and over-promising. In the endless incredulity as to why such talented players cannot reproduce their club form, we see our inability to register the gulf between the cosseted and financially secure world of elites, and the desperate impoverishment of the public realm. Little wonder that the mood has been so sombre, and that so few have dared to hope that we could actually be a better version of ourselves.
Above all, there was a change of mood, certainly among the loudest voices, about Southgate; once sanctified, then vilified. In the fact-free world of our public conversations, his coaching credentials have been dismissed, his huge success discounted. His loyalty, stability and caution – despite everything we have experienced in an era of political backstabbing, chaos and recklessness – have been derided. But perhaps we are at a turning point. England are in the final. Southgate’s detractors have been muted, and his defenders have become more vocal, yet it still feels a little like Labour’s “loveless landslide”.
There are reasons for cautious hope. Since the quarter-final, played two days after the general election, the team has been perceptibly better and, though they have not displayed any of the fluidity of the Spanish, there have been moments to treasure: impeccable, nerveless penalty taking and an impossible last-minute winner. Southgate and his team certainly know how to shut out the noise, hold their nerve and win despite going behind. What they have lacked in tactical precision has been balanced by an evident and energising sense of solidarity. Above all, Southgate has retained the humanity and the empathy that have been his trademarks; acknowledging the frustrations of the fans, nurturing and protecting his players, and finding a way to keep hope alive. There hasn’t been much of that in these last 14 years. If England win today, there will certainly be love and revelry, but that too will be noise. The real gift we should all be grateful for – win or lose – is leadership of this emotional timbre and the sense of possibility it has generated.
• David Goldblatt is the author of The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football and The Game of Our Lives
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