European Football Championship: Cucumber England poses a mystery – goal and horror pass from Harry Kane

Goal and horror pass from Kane
Howling kittens: What is going on with European Championship favourite England?

By Tobias Nordmann
20.06.2024, 23:55

Is that a rip-off or awful? Opinions are divided on the English national football team’s performance, and not just since this European Championship. But in their second appearance in this tournament, the “Three Lions”‘ status as favorites has suffered its first major dent.

This European Football Championship has been one big party so far. The Scots are helping a grandma in the rain and celebrating until Germany’s beer supplies are empty, and in Dortmund the first pubs are sounding the alarm. In the same city, the Turks and Georgians are enchanting the continent with a battle that can hardly be topped. The DFB eleven is growing into a title favorite, with coach icon Ewald Lienen already wanting to encourage a motorcade. Austria is taking on the French and in the end is narrowly defeated by the gigantic quality of the “Équipe Tricolore”. The Spanish are conjuring up magic, the Albanians are fighting their way into people’s hearts. Oh, it’s all wonderful.

Except for the English. They have to go to the “shithole” Gelsenkörken for the opening match and can’t get away. At least one of them didn’t. All the others arrived late and disgruntled. And they were already in a defeated mood. The last test before the European Championship against Iceland turned into the “horror show at Wembley”. It can’t all be true, this team is the top favorite for the title. Although after the second match day you have to replace “is” with “was”. With a performance that can be described quite well as “sloppy”, the “Three Lions” salvaged a shaky draw (1:1) against Denmark in Frankfurt. Kyle Walker, highly decorated expert from the super team Manchester City, doesn’t see anything bad about what happened in the mighty Eintracht stadium: top spot in the group defended. A well-deserved point secured. That’s how he sees it.

The lightning-fast full-back was quite exclusive in his opinion. Shortly after the final whistle, the Lions were given the first slap in the face from their homeland: “What a terrible performance,” complained the “Daily Mirror”. Nothing, absolutely nothing about this game provided any reason to believe that the longing for a title after 58 years would be satisfied on July 14. Not even their own goal, scored by Harry Kane after 18 minutes. On the left side of defense, the Dane Victor Kristiansen fell asleep for a second, Walker sprinted in between, his deflected cross landed at Kane’s feet. And he easily put the ball away from close range – 1:0. The game had just become a little livelier.

And bang, back in sleep mode

But before the English had really got going, they went back into sleep mode and hardly came out of it after that. Bukayo Saka headed the ball into the side netting a few minutes after the break, and Phil Foden hit the post a little later after a nice, quick move. But otherwise? Football that wasn’t football. A non-performance, close to arrogance. In some situations, much more than that. As if the opponent, who was narrowly defeated in the semi-finals of the last European Championship after a controversial goal by Kane in the 104th minute, wasn’t being taken seriously.

Perhaps the most shocking scene for all fans of the “Three Lions” happened in the 66th minute. Declan Rice was played by Kieran Tripper in his own penalty area, the Danes ran up and the Lions’ 120 million Euro number six simply played the ball out of the goal. Rice, his colleagues and those in the stands were stunned. What was going on there? Intimidated like a kitten whose tail had been stepped on, Gareth Southgate’s team acted, and things will not be getting any quieter around him.

Southgate rarely lets his team off the leash. The big attacking stars, Kane, Foden and Saka, rarely get to develop. They can make football look so incredibly fast and easy. Like a different sport, even compared to some of the other top European leagues. And Jude Bellingham, still Gelsenkirchen’s best man, was also unable to get anything done on Thursday evening. The world star from Real Madrid kept waving in despair when the referee didn’t blow his whistle, when his teammates once again had no good idea how to move the game forward.

Sleepyhead Kristiansen delivers to

During an attack, Kane lost the ball with a horrific pass in the middle. The Danes immediately switched gears. Sleepyhead Kristiansen played a simple pass to Morten Hjulmand and he lasered the ball into the corner from a distance (34′). Keeper Jordan Pickford was powerless. The English lost themselves until half-time. It seemed they didn’t win any more duels. They fell, they quarreled, they swore. But they didn’t play football. Loud whistles rained down from the stands, where so much support often comes from. They grew to the point of a concert.

Southgate accepted this stoically. He let things run their course, even though they were not going in a good (English) direction. He did not make any corrections at half-time either. After just under ten minutes, Conor Callagher came on, a man for central midfield. A controller, not one for the uninhibited delivery order. That did not come. With the persistence of the German Chancellor, Southgate sat out all debates about a changed starting line-up and a less defensive approach for this attacking monster. Why Cole Palmer, Chelsea’s shooting star, has no chance remains a mystery. The English no longer pushed for victory. Instead, the Danes pressed and were unlucky with a shot from Pierre-Emile Höjbjerg (85′).

“We make it”

Walker, who was not shaken by this performance, contradicted the prevailing opinion in the interview that the coach was holding his players back and did not want them to play forward. It was different, Southgate wanted to go forward. Then the conversation on German television unfortunately broke off. So no one knows what the offensive move will look like. Probably very controlled and not uninhibited. Southgate, the English penalty taker in the 1996 European Championship semi-final against Germany, is a big fan of the defensive zero. Under his guidance, England kept a clean sheet in 21 tournament matches. According to Weisheit, that is the foundation for the title. And that is what we want.

“I know there will probably be a lot of noise and a little disappointment at home, but we experienced that at the last European Championships when we drew with Scotland,” said captain Kane, adding reassuringly: “We can do it. We are top of the table, we can still improve.” They have to, otherwise they could face a possible round of 16 against Germany, Oh dear.