England in the Nations League: the fun is back in international football
A fresh, fun new competition for a fresh, fun new England: the Nations League has been the perfect medium for Gareth Southgate to build on the good work of the World Cup summer.
Sunday afternoon’s highly enjoyable come-from-behind win over Croatia at Wembley was a fitting capper for a fine year.
Goalscorer Harry Kane said that “he’d never seen Wembley like this in an England shirt”, and he wasn’t the only one.
England ended up topping a group featuring the team who broke their hearts in the World Cup, and the team who have been the major force in international football of the last decade or so. Not a bad effort at all.
And so against the odds, it is England who go through to the last four next summer, and Croatia who take on the Middlesbrough 1996-1997 role of being double losing finalists and relegated in the same season.
Beleaguered Spain languish in mid-table, and the time has surely come for a root-and-branch review into their fading football system if they are not to be condemned to a generation in the League A Group 4 wilderness.
In another parallel pot, Germany have also been relegated, and if you cannot enjoy that, then, well maybe international football is not for you.
The Nations League has achieved the seemingly impossible by making international football outside tournament qualification matter.
For so many years international friendlies have been annoying breaks in the real football calendar, watching England use 27 outfield players as they blunder through a deflating 2-0 win over Molvania, Sven or Fabio standing impassively on the touchline gazing into the middle distance and thinking what to do with his investment portfolio as England’s third string hoof the ball to nobody in particular.
People were naturally sceptical, bordering on cynical, when Uefa announced the new Nations League format.
And rightly so: Uefa is never knowingly under-complicated, the rules for 2020 qualifying most resembling The Fast Show’s Billy Bleach sorting out change in the pub.
But even the weirdly small groups have worked. England’s stated aim was to get exposure to playing proper sides in competitive fixtures, and they have done.
Would you now go ahead and back England to beat Spain 3-2 in an actual World Cup semi? No, probably not. But having been to Seville and done just that in the Nations League is a welcome step closer to England becoming a major nation in knockout football.
To put the happy 2-1 win over Croatia in context, the Nations League is somewhat, but not really, related to the actual Euros. The only impact that England’s glorious League A Group 4 win will have is to send Southgate’s boys into a five-team group, not six, when qualifying starts in March.
But Uefa have produced a rare hit here, and the fun, fearless football that England have hit upon has been perfectly showcased in a tournament where style and good vibes was as important as the actual results.
Unless you are relegated Germany, that is. They have, regrettably been mannschafted.
