England celebrate winning the semi-final
We are living the golden age of English football. The non-golden generation was a crude phrase, a clever marketing gimmick slapped on a group of well-known male players in the early 2000s by then-Football Association chief executive Adam Crozier.
No, this is the golden age. A time when national football teams are making progress across the board, men and women, and across all age groups. England is perhaps the most successful nation in world football at present.
For the third consecutive summer, the senior team is in a major final. In 2021, it was the men who painfully lost the final of the postponed 2020 European Championship after a penalty shoot-out. In 2022, it was the women who won the Euro for the first time.
Both of these finals were at Wembley Stadium, but now the women are in Australia and are competing in their first World Cup final, with the European Men's Championship next year in Germany, where England is the rightful favorite along with France.
The achievements are much deeper. It's not just about the seniors with England and the success of the youth teams bodes well for the future. Now England is no exception if it goes deep into any tournament; it's an expectation.
What's even more remarkable is that it can be attributed to a specific event: the opening of the national football center in St. George's Park in October 2012.
Gareth Southgate's accomplishments on the men's team only added to the sense of growth for the national team. Photo: PA Wire/Martin Rickett
In the 20 years before the SGP, England had only won three youth tournaments. tournaments — EURO among men under 18 in 1993 and 2010 and EURO among women under 19 in 2009. That's it.
England have often gone far — the men have had 12 semi-finals and the women have reached that stage at least five times — but there has been an explosion of success since then. England have won seven tournaments in 10 years, including two World Youth Championships in 2017 and the European Women's Championship, and hopefully there will be an 11th tournament on Sunday. They have been runners-up three times and semi-finalists at least 13 times.
Gareth Southgate, head coach of the men's national team, says the measure of success is getting close enough to win a trophy. It happened to Germany, Spain and France — countries that England has studied and is trying to emulate — and Southgate himself has his sights set on winning the Euro next year and has the guts to say so.
There is a correlation with female rating. team. In 2018, they placed third, the best ever, at the Under-20 World Championships in France. squad.
The Football Association is to be commended given that it has been guilty of lack of performance and complacency for decades, and especially given its resources, which are unmatched in almost any country. What is happening now is outstanding; what happened before is an indictment.
“The performance momentum in the women's elite games is also reflected in the men's game with the (senior) men's Euro runners-up, men's under-19s, men's under-21s. success over the past two years,” said FA Executive Director Mark Bullingham. “So, this is an unprecedented period of success for us, for the FA, but we are not resting on our laurels. We still have a lot to do and we are determined to achieve it.”
There has been a cultural reset which, although he is too humble to take credit for it, can be traced back to Sir Trevor Brooking when he was the FA's director of football development, insisting that there is a fundamental change in the way England play their football. including SGP.
Southgate, who first joined the FA in 2011 as head of elite development after being persuaded to do so by Brooking, has also been an integral part of the journey and has been at the very end of the men's commands.
The criticism that he hasn't won the tournament yet is intentionally unfair given what came before it at the time how Sarina Wigman's participation in women appeared much later, but was a resounding success. The argument against Southgate is that men need the equivalent of Wigman with her track record of winning trophies, but he absolutely deserves to compete in Euro next year.
There are so many elements and so many contributors to this success, from former FA CTO Dan Ashworth, now at Newcastle United, to head coaching development team Matt Crocker, now USAF CTO.
< p>Credit where credit is due. Clubs have also played their part by gaining EPPP (Elite Player Performance Plan) approval, although it is important that FA technical directors John McDermott (Tottenham Hotspur) with men, Kay Cossington (Millwall and West Ham United) with women — have experience in club football.
An example of such work was — a possible — agreement with the clubs on the early release of 23 women's World Cup players, and it is certainly no coincidence that they will meet with Spain in full force.< /p>
It took a lot of hard work. An example is the national team coaching room at the SGP, where exhaustive reports were made on every camp from U-15 to U-21. what worked and what didn't, and what talents emerged — and investments.
It pays off, literally. England is probably the richest developed football nation in the world thanks to the Premier League and this should be reflected in the success.
Of course it may not last but what is so encouraging is that England is finally — something earned the foundation and foresight. This is a golden age, and women can go to the next level, securing their status as the best team in the world.
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