For the second consecutive major tournament, England have bowed out in the semi-final stage. This time they were able to achieve third place, as they beat Switzerland on penalties, unlike last summer at The World Cup in Russia where they lost to Belgium in the third place playoff.
Getting to the semi-finals of a major competition hasn’t always been easy for England as last summer was the first time they managed to achieve that feat since 1990. So getting there twice should be seen as a big achievement for this young English team.
However, UEFA’s newest competition was a great chance for the Three Lions to finally add a major trophy to their 1966 World Cup success. As the likes of France, Belgium and Spain didn’t make it through the qualifying round.
This meant that England were joined by the Netherlands, Switzerland and eventual winners Portugal. Most people wouldn’t regard these as the strongest four international teams in Europe, especially when looking at last year’s World Cup, where both Portugal and Switzerland got knocked out in the round of 16 and the Netherlands didn’t even qualify for the finals. Whereas England were joined in the final four by three different European teams; Belgium, Croatia and France.
With the UEFA Nations League’s final four teams being what they were, it was reasonable to suggest that England would be the favourites at this stage of the competition. Not just in a ‘we all watch the Premier League so we know those players’ sort of way, but they had arguably the strongest squad of players at the semi-final stage as well as previously showing they could work as a strong unit throughout the World Cup 2018 finals and the UEFA Nations League qualifiers.
This all came crashing down though when England slumped to a 3-1 AET defeat to the Netherlands in the semi-final. England were outplayed the majority of the game and the Dutch were probably disappointed that they couldn’t win the game before going to extra time with the chances they had.
Some people may look at the defeat as a good learning experience for this young English side. While this may be true, England got the easier path to the latter stages of the World Cup and here they were in the semi-finals with teams that shouldn’t have been as good as them. So twice this England side haven’t been able to fully capitalise on big opportunities.
The advantage that this England team have over previous teams is that with the addition of the UEFA Nations League every two years, there is a trophy available to win almost every year. No longer do international teams have to wait two years for their chance at silverware. Still, England cannot keep letting these big chances slip away.
Gareth Southgate’s team have done brilliantly to make it to two semi-finals and they deserve all the plaudits that are coming their way. They just have to hope that when the next big opportunity comes whether it’s Euro 2020 or the next World Cup that this team can seize it and finally bring another major trophy home.
The Simple Football Blog 