In a series examining why England have only won one major international trophy, part one looks at the present day under Gareth Southgate and whether his nearly-misses cast doubt over his ability and leadership?
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00:00 Historically, England have not done well at international tournaments. The nation that
00:04 invented football has only won one World Cup. Why in a nation so football obsessed has success
00:10 been so hard to come by? Other nations have seen majestic triumphs in the 57 years of
00:15 Hurt, since England lifted the Jules Rimet trophy on that famous day at Wembley in 1966,
00:22 with the Three Lions having generally underperformed in the same period. Whilst the FA now has
00:26 St George's Park, a purpose-built training site dedicated to improving the fortunes of
00:30 the men's team, the honours walls show of youth tournament wins but nothing more. They
00:36 show of all the managers who have tried and failed in the so-called hardest job of all.
00:42 In this series, I am to find out just what has gone so wrong. We start in the present,
00:47 under Gareth Southgate. The Times' Henry Winter gave me his thoughts on tenure marked by nearly
00:53 moments.
00:54 There seems to be two takes on Southgate and England at the moment. The broadcast press
00:59 conferences, which are the ones that most people see or listen to, Southgate sort of
01:06 talks and it's all quite positive. The sort of print/digital ones, the one I'm involved
01:11 in, which is a separate one and doesn't get broadcast, they're quite feisty affairs and
01:15 they have been to an extent since the Croatia semi-final in 2018. And the fact that Southgate
01:22 didn't react enough, but particularly since the game against Italy last summer at Wembley.
01:28 Obviously a lot of that was overshadowed because of the horrific racist abuse to the three
01:34 black players, but, and also the incidents beforehand and all that, and Southgate got
01:42 off a little bit lightly. So, you know, we've had arguments, debates, questions with him
01:49 ever since about why he didn't react when the game was turning against England, even
01:52 though they're one and up just before halftime. Why didn't he react to Mancini's changes?
01:58 So issues like that, you know, stay in your mind. So I take your point about the Nations
02:03 League, but this is slightly deeper and longer running than that. England have got a collection
02:07 of players, fantastic collection, excuse me, the depth of players is fantastic. But do
02:16 England have the manager who has that killer instinct, who has that in-game management,
02:21 who has that decisiveness to make the changes at the key time to ensure England protect
02:28 a one nil lead, get another goal, or if they're behind, come back into it. So I really like
02:36 Gareth, you know, he's a far more resilient character than he's always given credit for.
02:41 You know, you must be when you've had what, 4,000 letters abusing you after missing a
02:44 penalty at Euro 96, you know, it's got to be tough. I do slightly worry that when it
02:50 comes down to it, England might not make it.
02:53 Under Southgate, England's performances at major international tournaments have drastically
02:57 improved, but they are yet to get over the line. In the next episode, we'll go back to
03:02 the very origins of football in this country.