Will England set up a final reckoning with Spain? Only if they play well

Here’s your whizzy England and Netherlands composite image. Photograph: Uefa/Getty Images

TO DORTMUND!

In Munich’s semi-final, Euro 2024 was turned on its head. Spain, playing beautifully, beat France, playing if not badly but worse than their opponents. Here was a kick against an orthodoxy that has guided Gareth Southgate’s dysfunctional England to the semis. From the point they stepped off the gas after 30 minutes against Serbia this was supposed to be the tourney where you didn’t have to play well to progress. Having mostly played like a pick-up band on heavy Mandrax, it feels fair to say this England has not captured the nation in quite the way Southgate’s team did in 2018, Euro Not-2020 and even at the Human Rights World Cup in 2022. Frank Skinner, David Baddiel and Ian Broudie’s expected royalties must be down. That song has often been conspicuous by its absence. Pubs and houses decked in the flag of St George? Not so much. Perhaps only that shootout against the Swiss was a shared national moment.