World Cup: Southgate pleased with ‘gritty’ England, despite missing ‘zip’ in US draw

AL KHOR, Qatar – For four fleeting, glorious days, all was right and all was well in England’s world. Gareth Southgate’s team had cut Iran to ribbons in their first game at the World Cup, a glistening generation of talent dancing and weaving and sparkling on the grandest stage of them all.

He should have known it would not last. That was Monday. By Friday, England were being loudly and roundly – and just a little unfairly – booed from the field by their own fans, the players, and particularly the coach, informed in no uncertain terms that the fans had not travelled all this way to Qatar to watch their team be held to a 0-0 draw by the United States.

On an entirely practical level, the significance of the result is minimal for England – nothing more than a bad day at the office, the sort of thing that can be swiftly shaken off and may, in a few weeks, be relegated to a mere footnote.

Southgate acknowledged his side had failed to repeat their early World Cup attacking fluency but insisted that success in major tournaments often required such gritty performances – seemingly referring to how they stopped the Americans from scoring.

“Yes, we lacked a little bit of zip and quality in the final third and we weren’t able to open up, to create really good chances. But we had to show another side of ourselves,” said the England boss, whose side withstood a string of set pieces from the US, who grew in confidence throughout the game and came close to winning the contest.

“To be a successful team at a tournament, you have to show those different faces and we did that tonight. I’m really pleased with how the players applied themselves. Some of our quality in the final third could have been a little bit better but we’ve shown great resilience to defend against an opponent that kept asking questions and, really, we’ve controlled the game well from the back.”

Should England beat Wales in their final group game on Tuesday, they will qualify for the tournament’s next stage at the top of Group B, earning (in theory) a kinder draw in the first knockout round. Even a tie against Wales would, at the very least, be enough to ensure progress.

A 0-0 draw on Friday is nothing terminal. Emotionally, though, it is different. England came into the World Cup on the back of six winless games and a dispiriting year. Southgate’s popularity had plummeted.

There were questions over the players he was selecting and those he was not. There was a reprise of the old accusation that his tendency towards caution was wasting the first golden generation of talent that the country had possessed since the last one.

The manner of the 6-2 victory against Iran – that sense of a team being let off the leash – brought all of that to a screeching halt.

The mood at home has been quietly triumphant; the impressive performances of France and Spain and Brazil were weighed up in relation to England’s.

The atmosphere among the squad members has also been chipper, upbeat.

The risk now is that the energy changes, as a consequence not so much of Friday’s result against the US but of the performance. This, in stark contrast to Iran, was the England that the fans had feared would appear in Qatar: hesitant, reluctant, their caution recast not as a virtue but as a vice.

There are, of course, mitigating circumstances. England, for one, are not likely to be the last of the favourites to find it difficult to maintain their form when afforded only two full days’ rest between games.

Nor would they be the only team to struggle to find much fluency when faced with an opponent as organised and as ferocious in their pressing as the Americans.

And yet those mitigating factors are not quite sufficient to assuage the doubts. That England were struggling to assert control and create chances was obvious not long after half-time; still, though, Southgate proved reluctant to turn to the vast array of firepower stockpiled on his bench. He stood, he watched, and he waited.

Not until the 68th minute did Southgate attempt any corrective action, and even then, it did not work. England’s first shot of the second half – a tame, somewhat speculative effort from Marcus Rashford, one of the three substitutes introduced as the clock ticked – arrived with only three minutes left to play.

“I’m sure there’ll be a lot of noise about the performance but not many teams go through World Cups and get nine points in the group,” argued Southgate.

England captain Harry Kane also said that a draw is not “the end of the world” and that “there are no easy games in a World Cup”.

The true test is still to come, when the blissful serenity that marked England’s first week in Qatar is replaced by scrutiny, when the mood is no longer quite so relaxed, when the tension starts to simmer. Then, and only then, will England be able to know their true identity. NYTIMES, REUTERS, AFP