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When all you have known is failure, every winner looks smug. The England football team have existed for most of our lifetimes in the role of losers; sometimes tragic, sometimes embarrassing. We are a country of great range. Supporting them has felt like being a fan of the Buffalo Bills, Colin Montgomerie or Neil Kinnock in the 1990s. In truth, that suits us.
We are not a nation who prizes coming first over all else. Royal family aside, we mistrust dynasties. Films made about Sir Jason Kenny – England’s most successful Olympian, winner of seven gold medals – zero. Films made about Eddie the Eagle: one.
We are uncomfortable with pride to the point of misanthropy, pathologically self-effacing yet routinely thought of as arrogant by foreigners for overstating our exceptionalism. Yet our patriotism is complicated. Our most famous football song hides decades of pain behind a celebratory chorus misinterpreted as triumphalist.
Loss runs through our identity, of standing, of face, of empire. “Instead of trying to grapple with the implications of the story of empire, the British seem to have decided just to ignore it,” wrote Jeremy Paxman in his book The English: a Portrait of a People. “The most corrosive part of this amnesia is a sense that because the nation is not what it was, it can never be anything again.”
Perhaps there are some traditional English values which would make us good winners. Politeness, fairness, modesty. Two years ago, England’s women won their Euros and managed to celebrate respectfully but authentically. The worst behaviour was the euphoric interruption of Sarina Wiegman’s press conference by her own players.
Other sports have had their moment of release and dealt with it in a way that preserves what makes us peculiar. Think of Freddie Flintoff on the razz all the way to Downing Street after the Ashes victory of 2005, or Eoin Morgan after the 2019 World Cup win over New Zealand saying, “There’s no defining moment that you’d say: ‘Yes, we thoroughly deserved it.’” After the final whistle of the 2003 World Cup, Ben Kay upheld rugby’s traditions of propriety by going straight to the referee to thank him. Head coach Clive Woodward’s first thought was to console his opposite number Eddie Jones.
But winning one tournament does transmogrify your national DNA. There was more Ashes glory on the way for England, but not before a traditional de-trousering in the next series after 2005. The ODI team finished their title defence at last year’s World Cup with a worse record than Afghanistan. The rugby class of 2003 failed to build on a wonderful team, gradually disintegrating despite making the final again in 2007. They, too, were back to ignominy by the home World Cup of 2015, knocked out at the pool stage.
In these cases, the return to what we know best is greeted with something approaching relief, like it is a resumption of the natural order. It is as if we paid attention to only half of the Rudyard Kipling lines: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same.” Triumph is an Elizabeth Holmes-level fraud. Disaster is an old friend.
Gareth Southgate has talked in the past few weeks about his FA origin story. He wanted to restore the national football team to a place of respect in the world. Clearly he has done this. Compare England’s last four tournaments to any other country in Europe: semis, finalists, quarters, finalists. Only France compete, winners of the 2018 World Cup, runners-up in 2022 but out of this Euros a round before England and out in 2021 at the round of 16. Spain fell at the same stage in 2018 and 2022, Germany exited the last two World Cups in the group stage, Italy did not even make it that far.
Whatever happens in Berlin, this is at least a competitive England team who are coming close to victory. There is a path from here where the old defeatist tropes may need to be shed. This can be hard in a sport where even the most successful clubs have their version of “typical City/United/Rovers” which is inevitably making it hard for themselves or struggling to win games they are expected to. That will not wash for England if making finals and sometimes winning them become regular occurrences.
We could look within and pluck out a paragon from this team to show the way. Why not Bukayo Saka? Brave, brilliant, humble, consistent and likes Nando’s so much they named a peri-peri sauce after him. He is the best of us and the best of modern England. Perhaps on Sunday night he and we can add another descriptor to our shared character: champions.
England last won a trophy in 1966: The nation knows how to embrace defeat, not triumph
Our sense of Englishness is rooted in football failure, so how would we deal with team winning first major men’s tournament in 58 years?