Perspective

 With the frequency of a Gareth Southgate attacking substitution, I make a dramatic return to the biennial blog tradition of old, rolling back the years Modric style! (Dovidenja Luca!)

Today marks the first round of games of the last 16, and with only 8 teams dropping out from the group stage allowing for the ability to qualify without winning a group stage game (I’m looking at you Slovenia), it feels like the tournament is just getting started. As I start to look forward, let’s also look back at the highlights so far:

Spain - hands down the best team in the tournament so far. Fluid, exciting on the wings, yet still with Morata up front. It’s like centre forward is Spain’s left back position, only that Alvaro claims to be a “specialist”. Like any strong team that look world beaters in the group stage, ultimate failure awaits. Morata sitter missed and defeat in the quarter final awaits.

Germany - At the end of the day, they’ve beaten Scotland and Hungary. Denmark will be a challenging and organised opponent. But in Musiala, they have a player who could define this tournament. It might need extra time, or even pens, but they will squeak through today and beat Spain in the quarters.

Rubbish teams heading to the semis - It’s here that time is my friend. Watching Birchy’s impressive Kante like levels of production on the blog has been nothing short of tremendous. And all of his snap reactions have been precisely on point. But with the benefit of taking a deep breath, I don’t have to call this section “England”, although they are a very prominent member! More on the 3 Lions later, but this club also includes an underwhelming but supremely talented France, a “not sure what we’ll do today” Belgium (and even if they did play well, Lukaku has somehow been cursed by the ghost of Stockley Park and the first human victim of AI taking over the world as every goal is denied), and an Italy team that appears well organised but somewhat limited. Not all of these teams will feature deep in the tournament, (Exhibit A: France v Belgium in this round) but you just know a subset will without doubt.

My pick for tourney winners - Portugal. They look good and balanced, will be well rested after topping the group after 2 games. And you know there’s some kind of Ronaldo narrative to play out. 

Delights - Brilliant goals, Austria topping the group, Georgia qualifying for the tournament itself via an a slightly ajar back door and making it to the last 16, Romania game 1 overwhelming Ukraine, Fans - it seems that almost every team has a fantastic following and that seats have been given to actual fans versus corporations.

Frights - Scotland. Awful first game, and while able to yell injustice in their final game, only managed their first shot on target in the last minute when needing to win. Limited. Hot on the heels of winning the champions league, the Everton manager alumni society now has two teams in the last 16. Even more frightening, I just predicted above that one of them will win the thing! Phenomenal. Daniel Sturridge- this will appear an unusual pick, but here in the USofA we have been “treated” to the analytical punditry of DS alongside Alexi Lalas ranting uncontrollably at anything that moves and Georgio Chiellini. The latter’s only quality insight so far was to smugly say “ will England change and play more attacking in the next game? Under this manager? No”. He knows.

England - which leaves me with the Southgate conundrum. Yes, he’s conservative and safety first. Yes, he should be getting more out of the players, but I don’t think we should be at the throwing beer cups stage just yet. He’s not the first manager to struggle with two similar players positionally (see Gerard, Lampard & Scholes), he’s not the first to struggle with an ageing striker that starts to affect how the team plays and  he’s not the first to underwhelm in the group stage. Perspective is needed. We’ve won the group, we apparently won the draw for what feels like the 3rd tournament in a row, and in the last game against a team determined to defend all game, we saw Gareth start to turn to players who will make the difference. Sure, the Gallagher experiment to replace the Trent experiment could have been dealt with in the qualifiers, but it’s done now and Mainoo is sure to start and Cole Palmer has to feature strongly. Energy may return. Lastly, there were concerns over the defence and we’ve been rock solid so far with Guehli our best player.

And with that, we move forward with hope. We’re in control of what happens next, and have the tools to fix this. And if Gaz is allowing Anthony Gordon to ride his electric bike without stablisers, maybe this is the first sign that the shackles are coming off…..