As everyone in England books off the Tuesday and Wednesday of July 10 and 11 for the impending World Cup semi-finals, they seem to have forgotten one thing: they lost to bloody Iceland two years ago.
When England are expected to win in these major competitions, they generally don’t.
The best thing about Gareth Southgate’s preparation is that he relieved the team of that perennial, unfair pressure lumped on their shoulders ahead of every tournament.
No-one expected anything and they brought some joy back to the country with wins over Tunisia and Panama but, suddenly, a loss to a decent team and everything has fallen back into a normal order.
England lose and now they’re expected – expected – to walk through their second round and quarter-final fixtures.
Colombia might not be the best team on the planet but lesser sides have dominated the English who haven’t solved their game-controlling deficiencies, they just started using the pace and adventure they have. So when they come face to face with the South Americans under the eye of an expecting England public again, that familiar clamour to impress them and subsequently to panic could well be on show once more.
On the brilliant JOE World Cup Minipod (available daily every night from Sunday to Thursday), Dion Fanning summed up how the game against Colombia will pan out as a team more comfortable at keeping the ball exploits impatience from England.
“There’s a huge burden of expectation on the side,” he said.
“I can see Colombia having tonnes of the ball, England running around trying to figure out how to get the ball off them and kind of going, ‘hold on, this is supposed to be the easy half of the draw we’re in.’
“‘We’re in the easy half, lads, give us the ball back. Give us the fucking ball back!'”
The JOE World Cup Minipod is worth listening to at least for the daily @dionfanning voice breakhttps://t.co/tCEgMrPEkI pic.twitter.com/hAPATohMft
— Conán Doherty (@ConanDoherty) June 30, 2018
This might all be very different if Southgate can somehow shield the squad from the demand that now wants them in the last four of the World Cup for the first time since 1990.
Funnily, the new one today is that, if they lose to Colombia, Southgate will be criticised for choosing to not beat Belgium. As if that was a gimme.
Listen the World Cup Minipod below.
