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WWith a quarter of the match at Wembley Stadium, the number of variables, the list of things that could still happen in this match had already been narrowed down to a good point. Would Jack Grealish do something wild and gifted with the ball?
Would Harry Kane score a goal (this seemed to be the only question that ran through Kane’s mind for much of the game)? Would a strange haze of lassitude descend on Wembley and cause everyone to just lie down and stop?
There may have been stranger and deadlier England football occasions than this. But not many. And none that comes to mind. On a national plague lockout day, in a gray bowl surrounded by empty concrete walkways, players weary and travel-worn from England and Iceland lined up to fulfill a broadcast obligation.
The occasion would force them to run for 90 minutes and conjure up a competitive soccer game from the start. To their credit, they did both willingly and effortlessly. Although at times, frankly, it was a touch and went with the latter, as England won 4-0 in a deeply one-sided game.
What did we learn? What can Gareth Southgate “take” from a strange occasion at the end of a strange year, to fuel him for the next round of games four months from now?
There is a slight sense of confusion surrounding this change and England team change at the moment. Is Southgate showing determination and fearlessness by confusing himself with his formations and looking for a new and safer way? Or are you overthinking homework?
For this dead game, Southgate cautiously pressed his foot to the ground. This was a fun and upbeat England, with a starting eleven containing six, rather than seven, defensive players, most obviously attacking tones on the wings, and Mason Mount alongside Declan Rice in midfield.
Best of all, we got to see Phil Foden and Grealish in offensive midfield, a couple of the smartest creative guys in the England ball game.
It was here that the best, or rather, the best moments of the game arrived. And here another question of pitch and tempo seemed to arise.
However, it took a while. Iceland was sunk in a blue shirt knot. Erik Hamren is known as a “progressive” manager. Cut a classy dash with her Victorian bounder hair and scarf combo. But this has been a failed management, with six losses in the last seven games and a separation after tonight. The blue shirts ran eagerly but aimlessly. They launched into tackles. At times it was a bit like playing for Iceland in 1975.
England scored in the 20th minute with their first shot on goal. Rice headed a free throw from Foden. Three minutes later was two, Mount finished well after a mess in the Iceland area.
With half an hour passed, England had taken 82% of the possession. Iceland had completed 32 passes. The game, the entire occasion, had gone from gray to the deepest gray.
But soccer is somewhat tough and even in this dead zone there was real pleasure in the interaction between the skilled trio of Grealish, Foden and Bukayo Sakha.
It also felt noteworthy. England lacked such players for so long, those whose real skill is to catch the ball, spin, dribble, control the rhythms. They had more of them in the field here than at any recent time in their modern history.
At times, the Grealish-Foden-Sakha-Mount axis of passage resembled a kind of Anglo-Saxon tiki-taka, spinning the ball among the most cumbersome Nordics, with 360 ° vision and velcro touches.
Fittingly, the game ended with two good goals from Foden to make it 4-0. His second, a joke, a jump, a look up and a shot drilled in the corner was a beautiful thing. This is the type of player to adapt, to find a way. But then how does the coach want this team to play?
For a time last year England focused on speed, and prolifically. His fastest attackers have disappeared. In his absence, there was a vision here of an intricate and fast-passing England, one that might have gone a bit more head-to-head in the first half in Leuven against Belgium had the midfield double bolt been loosened in front of the defensive triple bolt. . a bit.
Instead, Southgate has a vision of winning matches against the best opponents with a rare goal, of his own team becoming a deep and impregnable layer. It is a sensible plan. But this kind of thing tends to happen as part of a larger process, by having your best team move by discipline in the tournament; rather than setting a year earlier to play this way.
This is perhaps what Southgate can get out of a monotonous Nations League campaign. England was commendably energetic here and commendably intense. But these are his best qualities, just like the current flowering of offensive talent is what will ultimately carry this team, not the quality of its defensive parts.
The manager would do well to remember this between now and March.
