England’s boss Gareth Southgate said it will be a dream come true moment if the Three Lions go on to beat Spain in the Euro 2024 final in Berlin on Sunday. Southgate, as a player, had missed the penalty shoot out kick in the Euro 1996 semifinal against arch-rivals Germany.
28 years later, he has led the English team to back to back finals but they are yet cross the final hurdle. The Harry Kane-led team have kept themselves in the tournament despite being on the verge of elimination.
England was trailing against Slovakia in the round of 16 but Jude Bellingham’s bicycle kick kept them alive before Kane scored from a header in the extra time. For a change, England kept their calm in the penalty shootout against Switzerland in the quarterfinal and then defeated the Netherlands by 2-1 in the semifinal.
Southgate and captain Harry Kane were asked at Saturday’s pre-match news conference whether the pair believed in fate, given they could now turn the tables and win in Germany. Kane said: “You can answer that one. You were about in ’96. I was only 3!”
Southgate replied: “I was around, very much around — probably one of the more popular Englishmen in Berlin, I would imagine.
“Look, I’m not a believer in fairy tales, but I am a believer in dreams, and we’ve had big dreams.
“We’ve felt the need and the importance of that, but then you have to make those things happen.
“And fate, the run that we’ve had, the late goals, the penalties, that doesn’t equate to it being our moment. We have to make it happen tomorrow. We have to perform at the level that we need to perform.
“Of course it would be a lovely story, but it’s in our hands, and our performance is the most important thing.”
Southgate admitted they had to go through difficult times to get the desired results but they were able to hang on.
“Sometimes you have to go through difficult nights as a team,” Southgate said. “We tried to change the mindset from the start. We’ve tried to be more honest about where we were as a football nation.
“I’ve travelled to World Cups, European Championships watching as an observer and watched highlights reels before the matches that were on the big screen before the game, and we weren’t in any of them. Because they only show the finals and the big games. We needed to change that.
“We had high expectations, but they didn’t match where we were performance-wise. Now, the high expectations are still there but we have had consistent performances over certainly three of the last four tournaments and a quarterfinal as well in the fourth.
“In the end, you always have to be in the latter stages of the tournaments to be able to learn how to win those big games. We’re learning that; we’ve come through a lot of big nights now.
“A lot of records that we’ve broken. But we know in the end, we have to do this one, we have to get this trophy to really feel the respect of the rest of the football world, I guess.”
