A sharp reminder to anyone wide-eyed enough to believe England would be placed as favourites in a major football tournament: scroll down to any of the five teams below them!
Seen it all before, in what is now around 24 tournaments since the '66 triumph, with the same patterns and self-doubt manifesting in every bunch of unfortunates made to don the Three Lions emblem.
They could field five Zidanes in midfield and still conspire to retreat into their shells after taking the lead against teams they ought to spank.
Bellingham, for all his messianic Adidas adverts and sense of self-importance, didn't produce the goods when it mattered, scoring an unmarked header against a weak Serbian side, whilst counting his blessings in a 96th-minute equalizer whilst in space, an attempt so risky that 99 times out of a 100 would've ended up miscued and him crumpled on the floor, where a simple side-foot would've done.
Yet when it came to the crunch, he was found wanting. A leader grabs the bull by the horns and drags his team through the entire tournament, a la Maradona in '86, not for select Instagram clout.
In fact the only player that played consistently was Pickford and possibly Mainoo from what I saw.
Southgate's insistence on starting a clearly spent Kane, coupled with his unwavering loyalty to a half-fit Shaw highlighted how he'd learnt nothing from previous failures. The Trent-Alexander 'midfield' experiment was also glaringly inept, as was the wastage of another promising generation of footballers under his leadership.
Imagine then, having had several years in the job and still experimenting mid-tournament, getting through by the grace of God against lower opposition. He should've been dismissed after the Slovakia game truth be told.
Contrast that with Spain, who at their last competitive loss against Scotland fielded a fairly experimental team, yet still featured the likes of Rodri, Carvajal et al. Spain's manager tweaked the system and forged a new team a year later, all without playing Yamal at leftback or playing with ten men behind the ball!
Southgate had his chance of salvation, the one opportunity to purge all previous criticism levelled against him and prove his tactical nous. By beating Spain, he'd almost certainly prove he has something about him, and gone out effectively immortalized.....but no, he chose to Southgate it up, shining a light on his easy route to previous 'nearly' achievements. My missus could've guided England to the same Semi-Final & Final combos, and she'd base team selection on who has the nicest arse!
So we'll repeat the post-mortem and ritual we're so accustomed to, cry into our beer etc etc and kid ourselves at how our luck deserted us once again, right before the next tournament swings around and the peasantry bellow out 'Three Lions' in their optimistic stupor.
But before all that, let's hear it for Southgate, the also-ran who wasted yet another generation with his 19th-century footballing ethos. After all, celebrating failure is at the very least, still celebrating
