Gareth Southgate reckons he's helped England regain "credibility" on a world stage as he reflected on guiding the Three Lions into the Euro 2024 semi-finals.
England required penalties to defeat Switzerland in a tense encounter at the Dusseldorf Arena.
Southgate, who celebrated his 100th game as head coach, has come under scrutiny for England's performances in Germany, yet a last-four meeting with the Netherlands next Wednesday lies between a second successive European Championship final.
“Every now and then you think ‘surely there has to be some enjoyment in this job’,” he said.
“So, if I can’t enjoy that moment then the whole thing is a waste of time. I love the players. I love being in that moment with them.
“I took this job to try and improve English football, not the seniors when I first joined the Football Association. I wanted us to regain credibility on the world stage.
“So, I can’t deny that when it is as personal as it has been in the past few weeks, on a human level that is quite difficult.
“But we are fighting, we won’t stop fighting and we’re in another semi-final and we’ll see where we can get to.”
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England haven't reached top gear in the tournament this far - but with five perfect spot-kicks sealing a last-four spot, Southgate believes his side have shown the qualities of sides who have previously won this competition.
“There’s what we ideally want to be and then there’s how we’ve needed to find ways to win with all the obstacles we’ve had,” he admitted.
“Going back to losing players a couple of months ago, losing players just before the tournament, different balance of the team, different challenges all the way through, really.
“But as I said to the players, with England it was often start 25 minutes really well, ahead in games and then and then out in the early knockout rounds.
“We weren’t savvy, we weren’t tournament wise. This group are different. They keep possession for longer periods.
“We haven’t always got it right. The games we’ve ultimately gone out in people can always look back and highlight things.
“But, in general, we’ve shown the resilience that the teams that win tournaments have had for years and years.
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“Italy, France, Spain, you know, it’s not all pure football. It’s other attributes that they’ve had and we’re showing a little bit more of that streetwise nature.
“We want to always be competitive in tournaments. England should be competitive for the coming years. This is a young team – a lot of them are going to be around for a long time.
“But, of course, now we want to deliver one. We’ve never been to a final outside of England, we’ve never won a Euros, so there’s two bits of history we’d love to create.”
