What is destiny? For England, It's a place where they find so much fortune
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Onwards destiny’s children…with smart-casual daddy destiny knitted and fitted for the occasion. A final in Berlin awaits Gareth Southgate and England. Spain await them too. Talk about contrasts in how to get there.
Is this what destiny looks like? A gifted team finally, mercifully clicking into gear with the help of a woeful referee, only to click straight back out and live on their familiar insipid edge again.
A team belatedly shaken up and, again with the help of Felix Zwayer whistling the Dutch clean off the park, finding lightning in a bottle in the shape of Ollie Watkins’ stunningly-struck injury-time winner.
'Gareth Southgate has made us all believe - winning Euro 2024 may be England's destiny' went a headline in the English edition of the a couple of days out from this Dortmund date with the Dutch.
Enough to get us wheeling out Eamon Dunphy’s timeless soliloquy again. Fleet Street may be no more but irony-free zones live nobly on.
What is destiny though? For Southgate and England, it looks to be a place where piles of luck and getting four or five goes to get it right meet. That’s what this was yet again. So much fortune, so many cracks at it.
Will the Spanish be as generous as Ronald Koeman’s side? A closing sight was the English bank of the Westfalenstadion roaring approvingly as Southgate punched the still-heavy night air. What happened to the shower of beers and boos? The mood music has changed.
A couple of hours earlier Three Lions was given a good rendition in the little England (literally as well as spiritually) corner.
Of course, at this stage it’s a ditty that’s been with us for 28 years, as old as one and a half Lamine Yamals. Spain’s 16-year-old will be a year older by the time the final rolls around. It was time for the rest of us to be wiser, Watkins enlightening us only at the last.
Southgate’s been here before of course. On the softer half of a knockout stages, looking to go deep. He has a habit of coming up against teams devoid of their controlling presence too.
In Qatar, England met Senegal shorn of captain Sadio Mané and midfield fulcrum Idrissa Gueye. In the previous Euros semi-final, Denmark pitched up to Wembley without Christian Eriksen, a team playing for their captain but crucially without him.
Here in Dortmund there was an invasion of 95,000 Dutch, pulsating oranje streams that coursed out of the central train station and up into the tight streets and squares.
Alas, among these hordes of Holland, Frenkie de Jong, Marten de Roon and Teun Koopmeiners weren’t to be found, England and Southgate now meeting a semi-final rival shorn of its entire midfield. It would tell.
It’s been that way for all of Euro 2024 and while Koeman has just about made it work, it was striking that even after picking up a combined 15 caps at this tournament, his starting trio of Xavi Simons, Jerdy Schouten and Tijani Reijnders had just 43 international appearances between them. Declan Rice, at the age of 25, had 56 on his own.
This is very good fortune, the Rhine gods shining down on their English visitors. Yet it’s only luck if you make the most of it. Southgate has made it a habit of getting the least imaginable out of England’s gifts.
Within three minutes we’d see another familiar failing, a gaping chasm opening up at the heart of England’s midfield but Donyell Malen making the wrong decision on the break.
Don’t sweat it Donny.
Within four minutes Rice would dig a hole all of his own outmuscled by all nine stone of Simons who unleashed a piledriver that Jordan Pickford’s stubbornly compact arms, great for pointing, better for thumping a chest but less so for stretching, couldn’t reach.
The orange wall did their trademark left-right dance in vertical format, just as satisfying a sight.
Yet fortune would soon come shimmering back out of the Dortmund dusk. A full week of English media vilification of Zwayer gave you the fear that he’d cave on a marginal call. Instead, he gave a penalty that was no penalty at all and we were level again.
Upon which, England finally turned up. Their fans had spoken it into existence: Phil Foden was on fire. Kobbie Mainoo, ignored for all three group games, was purring through the first half of a semi-final now.
Bukayo Saka was a constant, looming menace and the Dutch midfield trio couldn’t get close. For good measure, the Dutch lost their only prolific scorer, Memphis Depay.
It was curious. England’s utter superiority was such that the banks of burning orange had fallen most silent, charming chants of “your support is f**king shit” from the other end ringing around this place. It all had the feel of England 2 Netherlands 1 but it wasn’t.
They reemerged with Luke Shaw now on and proceeded to drop off some more. Did they actually think it was 2-1, or even 3-1? There was no urgency or threads linking them all.
Koeman’s changes had worked a charm, Wout Weghorst the human push-plough finding paydirt, territory and set pieces coming, chances with them.
Pickford pushed one from Virgil van Dijk away and the bursts of noise that broke the tension were now all Dutch.
Zwayer hounded the Dutch in the final moments and Southgate had another go at it. In swapping Kane for Watkins he found his answer.
English destiny. Next up, Spanish reality? We’d best not count on it.