Southgate's blind loyalty to Kane proved England's undoing

BERLIN — Berlin may signal the end of a long and winding road for Gareth Southgate as England manager, but he never quite reached his final destination because he made the same wrong turns at each key junction.

Harsh? Maybe, but Sunday’s 2-1 defeat by Spain in the Euro 2024 final in the German capital’s Olympiastadion was just like the loss against Italy in London in the Euro 2020 final, and the World Cup semifinal defeat against Croatia in Moscow two years earlier.

When Southgate needed to act, when his tactical acumen was tested to the full, he waited too long. Moscow, London, Berlin. Same story each time.

After eight years in charge — a period during which Southgate has unquestionably transformed the England team — the Three Lions are still searching for that first major trophy since the 1966 World Cup, and England remain world football’s great under-achievers.

Each time England have gone close to ending their barren run under Southgate, despite the talent at his disposal, the 53-year-old has been unable to make the telling contribution from the bench that the likes of Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel have made in big finals in the club game.

And in Berlin, while he made the bold and correct call to substitute captain Harry Kane after an ineffective hour, the truth is that the Bayern Munich forward should not have started in the first place.

Kane’s performances at Euro 2024 were well below his best. The 30-year-old ended the season with a back injury at Bayern and it impacted him so much that his contribution to the national team had a negative effect at the tournament — his movement was so limited and, when he dropped deep in search of the ball, there was nobody left up front as a focal point.

“Physically, it’s been a tough period for him [Kane],” Southgate said after the Spain defeat. “He came in short of games and he’s not quite up to the level that we’d all have hoped.”

Now considering the above, and that Southgate was aware of it throughout the tournament, why did he continue to persist with a player who was making his team worse? Reputation perhaps? A fear of a negative media reaction to dropping his captain and then suffering a defeat?

Whatever Southgate’s justification for continuing to select an unfit Kane, it centres on his key failing as England manager — that reticence to act swiftly and decisively, like an elite coach would.

Against Croatia in 2018, Southgate saw Luka Modric begin to dominate the game and take control for his team and failed to do anything about it, allowing Croatia to overcome a 1-0 deficit to win 2-1 in the Luzhniki Stadium.

Three years later, in the pandemic-delayed Euro 2020 final, Southgate was similarly slow to act when Italy began to dominate before beating England in a penalty shootout.

The warning signs have been there again in Germany. England were dismal in the group stage but did just enough in each game to get through, while they needed a 96th-minute Jude Bellingham goal against Slovakia to be saved from the ignominy of a round-of-16 elimination.

England were poor against Switzerland in the quarterfinal before winning on penalties, and then were drifting away in the semifinal against the Netherlands for 20 second-half minutes before Southgate’s substitutes Ollie Watkins and Cole Palmer combined for another stoppage-time winner.

Southgate got lucky — and every coach is allowed to get away with it — because he should have made the change much earlier. Against Spain, it is tempting to wonder how much different it could have been had Southgate been brave enough to start with Watkins and Palmer, rather than build his team around the injury-hit Kane.

Time and distance will ensure that Southgate’s eight-year, 101-game reign as England manager is remembered as a positive period in the nation’s football history because the team re-established the Three Lions as a continental power. However, there can be no escaping the fact that countries including Denmark and Greece have won major tournaments — the Euros in 1992 and 2004 respectively — since England’s solitary success at the 1966 World Cup. As for the nations that England regard as their equals — Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Brazil and Argentina — they have won multiple honours during England’s 58-year drought.

England have the players to end that winless streak, but they don’t have the coach. Southgate has been unable to get the best out of supreme talents such as Bellingham and Phil Foden at Euro 2024. That’s a brutal reality that the English Football Association must now grasp.

“I totally understand the question and know you need to ask it,” Southgate said when questioned on his future after the game. “But I need to have those conversations with important people behind the scenes and not discuss it publicly.”

The noises out of the English FA suggest they will do all they can to keep Southgate and that they want to extend his contract to take him to the next World Cup in 2026. They don’t want upheaval, they don’t want a challenging coach, they are happy with Southgate’s ambassadorial persona and that he takes the team deep into tournaments.

But he isn’t the coach to make England winners. The top coaches don’t make the same mistakes or display the same failings over and over when the heat is on.

Southgate has taken the England team a long way, but he has now gone as far as he can. He gives off the air that he knows that, but the English FA don’t want to hear it.

Yet as Spain prepare to fly back to Madrid with the European Championship trophy and England return empty-handed again, it’s time for a reality hit. Football’s coming home? Not this time.