Football

World Cup 2022: Despite England’s defeat, core group will continue for a long time

Gareth Southgate’s men bowed out of the World Cup at the quarter-final stage. The defeat to France hurt the Three Lions but the core group formed should serve them for a long time to come. 

England

Questions have been asked about England’s strategy against France. Marcus Rashford’s late introduction and Bukayo Saka’s substitution have been critically analyzed as factors affecting their result.

Southgate does not want to talk about their future after the difficult defeat. For a match that went as they had prepared for, it is a difficult result to swallow. The 52-year-old admitted the closeness of the result and how it could have turned in their favour with minor details going in their favour.

“It’s a really strange feeling because the end of a tournament is so stark,” Southgate remarked. “Everyone’s packing everything up, you go through years of preparation and then there’s that feeling – there’s the feeling that we were so close and there was a level of performance that I was so happy with.

“There’s the disappointing feeling that we could’ve gone on and done more, and yet I really have very few regrets about the whole thing. So yeah, emotionally, it’s a rollercoaster.”

Youth is the future

The doom and gloom of bowing out of the World Cup is expected. Southgate were the better side in the quarter-final defeat, matching the reigning world champions in all facets of the game. 

This was England’s seventh World Cup quarter-final defeat, the most by any nation. The players need to be lauded for their consistency, especially under the tutelage of Southgate. 

Bukayo Saka

The Three Lions were losing semi-finalists in Russia. In the Nations League, they bowed out in the last four again. They went one better in the European Championships, getting their biggest heartache in the final defeat to Italy.

England are no longer unpredictable and can be relied upon to give results. The accrued experiences in tournaments should help them in the long run, especially with a youthful core of players that will serve the nation for years to come. 

Jude Bellingham, Bukayo Saka, Phil Foden, Mason Mount, Reece James, and Declan Rice can all play for the England U23s. They are the future of England and the head coach believes competition experience will help them in the long run. 

“The way they’ve progressed and the way they’ve developed individually, the challenges they’ve overcome as a group, the group of players who haven’t necessarily started many games have been absolutely phenomenal,” Southgate added. 

“I think sometimes people think that we just talk about that in order to try and keep people happy but it’s the reality of what we have here.

“We’ve now got some very young players who have a lot of big match experience already, and the core of a group who are going to be together and be together, for a long while.”

France will take on the challenge of Morocco in the semi-finals, a team England players would have loved to pit their wits against. They will now take a short break to gather themselves before returning for club action. 

Barring Bellingham, most of the English will be in action on Boxing Day. Bundesliga is on a hiatus until January, giving the young midfield lynchpin more time to recover. 


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