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So you’ve probably already seen it, which means if you’re still reading this, you’re either a masochist, sadist, or Scottish. Is it really worth kicking this twitching corpse any further? Of course it is. We may have lost two hours of our lives, but we’ve gained five days of rich, delicious discourse in return. England: proudly taking with one hand and giving with the other since autumn 1966. Fingers to temples. Let the bloodshed begin.
And what was most immediately arresting this performance was that it tasted a little different than the usual tournament mash. Usually when England play a lesser nation in the group stage – think the United States in 2022, Scotland in 2021, Russia in 2016 – they are more guilty of being boring than bad, more they lack inspiration and ingenuity sooner than they possess any particular malignancy.
But this was a performance that was actually too bad to be boring, a performance that actively courted our disapproval, a rare mess mixed with rat poison and carpet patches. There were enough moments of amusing ineptitude from both sides to engage and rock the neutral: Declan Rice flicked the ball straight out of play for a corner, Mark Guehy almost gift-wrapped Denmark winning goal, Victor Christiansen basically forgets that Kyle Walker exists.
There was an opening goal scored essentially by accident and an equalizer that was aesthetically perfect. There was a pitch that cut like a shepherd’s pie. There was a roof that was left closed in sticky 25C heat. This was followed by Christian Eriksen’s 45-yard free-kick that failed to clear the first man. It was basically like watching one of those videotapes they used to sell in Woolworths in the 90s with Danny Baker narrating and a title like Oops! Football blunders 3.
Yet these were not the only reasons for the disorienting disposition of this meeting. Whenever the men in white controlled the area near the left wing, they were forced to consistently direct it in turn to the center of the pitch, making most of their attacking efforts stilted, even disjointed. The side in red could simply defend their territory in the middle with impunity, safe in the knowledge that their opponents were powerless to hurt them on their right flank.
That’s a pretty terrible paragraph, isn’t it? But that’s what happens when you consciously limit your options. You’ve got Kieran Trippier, a right-footed left-back who doesn’t even bother trying to disguise the fact – no feint, no shimmy, no darting eyes – that he’s going back inside. You have Phil Foden, a left-footed player with very little interest in playing on the left wing, who always wants to get into central areas less. England are essentially a team that play on 70% of the pitch, which is like trying to write a whole paragraph – as I did above – without using the letter A.
England’s lack of natural left-backs has been a long-standing problem and will remain so until Luke Shaw returns. Which makes it all the more important that your left wing can provide width on that flank.
Instead, Foden did his best work working in the right channel: an early shot that went just over the bar in the first half, a fierce strike against the post in the second.
Jude Bellingham spun to the left a couple of times in the second half, but he didn’t care to be there either. Eberechi Eze came on with 20 minutes remaining and immediately looked overwhelmed, carrying some heavy energy about him. Because after a while the self-prophecy starts to take over. The models are drilled and bolted. England’s left wing is becoming the sporting equivalent of the Zone in sci-fi novel Roadside Picnic: a dangerous and forbidden zone teeming with radioactive surfaces, lethal guns and mysterious mutilations, where no trespass goes unpunished.
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And, of course, there are no quick fixes or magic solutions here. Perhaps we could idly wonder what Raheem Sterling or Jack Grealish would offer in this area, or perhaps even Marcus Rashford’s peak speed, but neither has really progressed much to be here in the last few months of the season.
Anthony Gordon is the only left-wing specialist in the squad who can switch with either foot, but has yet to come off the bench in two games so far. Beyond which we are mainly in the novelty options: Saka, Trippier as a back five, Paul Scholes brought out of retirement in the latest insult to his talent.
But we are where we are. And that’s where England are: a team with game-changing individuals and serious imbalances in a competition where success is often determined by your weakest rather than your strongest unit. There were loud boos throughout, but no one who has paid attention to England over the past six months could argue that this was a performance that was unrepresentative of them.
Indeed, if this game allows them to reset expectations and get back to pragmatic basics, that might be the only positive takeaway from the night.
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