“Thirty years of hurt never stopped me dreaming” sang England fans in 1996. Another 30 years later, Three Lions supporters finally “have grounds to dream”, said The Telegraph. But not all football analysts believe the picture is so rosy for Thomas Tuchel’s men.
Gnawing hope
There’s a “familiar, gnawing, feeling growing inside all England fans: hope”, said ESPN, that this time, the Three Lions might just do it. There is “incredible depth” in the squad. Tuchel, England’s German head coach, has experience of winning some of the sport’s “biggest trophies” and his squad selection shows he is “clearly not afraid to duck away from making big calls”, nor “upsetting some of the bigger names”.
It’s not just Tuchel who has bags of experience. The “majority” of his squad can “call upon the muscle memory” of reaching finals in two of their last three tournaments. Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane play for Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, Arsenal’s Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka have “more Champions League knockout experience” than two years ago, and Marc Guéhi, “considered untested” at the Euros, has since moved to Manchester City and gained valuable European experience.
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To win, a team “must suffer, have luck on their side and improve as the tournament progresses”, said Felipe Cardenas on The Athletic. England have the “attributes”, and Tuchel “understands the players”. This time, captain Kane “can lead England to the promised land”.
‘Back to reality’
“I don’t have a great feeling about England,” said Oliver Kay on The Athletic. “I’m just not convinced they have really taken shape under Tuchel yet”. He “needs something (and not just Harry Kane) to click”.
The trouble is that England are “always a Kane injury away from a full-blown crisis”, said the BBC. Yes, they became the first European side to win eight World Cup qualifiers without conceding a goal, but March’s friendlies – a “turgid” draw with Uruguay and defeat to Japan – “jolted everyone back to reality”.
“In 1966, I left Wembley convinced England would win again,” said Hunter Davies in The New Statesman, but that “won’t happen again in my lifetime”. I fear that “England lack flair”, because “today in the Prem”, coaches have become “obsessed” with set-pieces and are “guided by videos and boring stats”. This makes the players “nervous”, “too concerned about pushing the opposition at corners” and “scared to express themselves”. But “we all live in hope”.
Even England fans themselves don’t seem particularly convinced, going by new data from bookmakers. Only a fifth of England fans are backing the Three Lions to win the tournament, which places England “significantly behind” several European rivals when it comes to “domestic support for their national team”, said Anna Wise in The Independent. In Scotland, confidence “is even lower”: fewer than one in 10 bets placed there are backing the national side, “who are currently priced at 300/1 to win”.
