It is a landmark that looms large and yet there is the sense that it is rather sneaking up on everyone. If all goes to plan, Gareth Southgate will manage his 100th England game in the quarter-finals of Euro 2024 in Germany next summer. For context, the country can count only two centurion men’s national team managers – Sir Walter Winterbottom (139 matches) and Sir Alf Ramsey (113). Sir Bobby Robson reached 95.
Southgate will take charge of his 90th game against Malta at Wembley on Friday night before his 91st against North Macedonia in Skopje on Monday – the final Euro qualifiers, although England have already qualified. They need results purely to ensure top-seed status for the group-phase draw in Hamburg on 2 December.
England have friendlies against Brazil and Belgium at Wembley in March and the plan is to have two more before the Euros, where teams will play three group matches. Advance, and Southgate’s 99th will be in the last 16.
Is Southgate aware of his potential spectacular century (never mind the nailed-on knighthood)? The correct answer is, yes, the quarter-final date is circled in permanent red ink in his Football Association-issue diary and, were it to be against, say, France, he will love it if we beat them, love it …
His audience was never going to get that. “Err, well, I know the numbers and I am aware that Bobby Robson was 95 games,” he said. What Southgate was quick to add was that his first match had been against Malta at Wembley in a World Cup qualifier in October 2016 and nobody would have had much on him lasting this long. Back then, Southgate was only the caretaker and a pretty reluctant one at that. His contract runs until December 2024.
“If you’d said to me the first time we played Malta that that would be the case [closing in on 100 matches], I wouldn’t know how I’d have talked about that,” Southgate said. “It’s been a privilege to take as many games as we have. We’ve had some wonderful experiences and some incredible nights along that journey. I’m so very happy to be in with the sorts of names that have managed that many games.”
Southgate had talked last Thursday of not merely wanting to rack up the appearances as manager and he would view a 100th game in the quarter-finals more in terms of what it could unlock – namely, the door to glory. He is obsessed with emulating the World Cup winner Ramsey by returning a major tournament trophy to HQ and he is not shy about saying his players are now in it to win it. England will be heavily fancied in Germany, even if France will probably start as the favourites.
“I don’t get up at five in the morning and come home from games at three in the middle of the night because I’ve got no interest in winning,” Southgate said. “I know I may not scream and be like a banshee on the sidelines but that doesn’t mean you want to win any less than other people.
“People will have opinions. I am probably tired of trying to fight that. In the end, it will be what it is. I just let our results and performances speak for themselves. You are never going to please everybody so the best way for a football manager is just to keep winning matches.”
There will be an 80,000-plus crowd at Wembley on Friday, as there was for Southgate’s first game against Malta, when his team won 2-0 with goals from Daniel Sturridge and Dele Alli. Some things never change with England; the level of match-going support is phenomenal, almost unrivalled in world football, as Southgate pointed out.
What has changed is the feeling within the fanbase. Upon the full-time whistle against Malta in 2016, there was a mixed reaction in the stands, a smattering of boos after a performance that did not really get out of third gear. The squad was reeling from the Iceland disaster at Euro 2016 and Sam Allardyce’s one-match interlude. Southgate has been able to instil greater unity and belief.
“We knew when we took over there was this disconnect, a lack of confidence with the team and football is about connection with supporters,” Southgate said. “For us, at a national level, that’s the public so you want to create those memories that bring people together … these big nights with families that might never watch football, as well. That has been important for us.”
It has been a complicated week for Southgate. People will say that it is only Malta, the fourth-lowest ranked team in Europe, who have won seven qualifiers in 61 years of trying. They have played seven, lost seven this campaign.
But Southgate knows “every second for us together in camp counts if we are to give ourselves the best chance of success next summer” – as he said on Monday last week. So the drip of injury-enforced withdrawals has been frustrating. Southgate does not have the players for long enough at the best of times.
Reece James had declared himself unavailable before James Maddison, Callum Wilson, Lewis Dunk, Jude Bellingham and Levi Colwill pulled out. Kalvin Phillips has been late to report because of a personal problem and he will not be considered against Malta. Southgate, who has added Ezri Konsa, Rico Lewis and Cole Palmer, said it had “not been easy to get all of the players on the pitch every day … Tuesday, we hardly did anything training-wise”.
Every action from those selected will be scrutinised because even though Southgate has a clear plan, he can never learn enough or have sufficient contingencies. Can Marc Guéhi capitalise on the absence of the injured John Stones? How will Trent Alexander-Arnold look in midfield? Will Conor Gallagher transfer his club form to Wembley? The clock is ticking loudly to next summer.
