Reflections from Germany: If, if, if. The enduring, eternal conjunction of English football
Nacho As Spain's Declan Dani Jude Dejected Rice And Fernandez Stand Pic: Bellingham Wire Celebrate And Daniel Olmo, Milligan/pa Carvajal England's Andrew
The Nordic Bar at Berlin Brandenburg Airport has a quote on the wall from Danish brewer J.C. Jacobsen which is probably quite nice. But for this month at least it’s covered over with a 36-inch TV.
On Monday lunchtime, three England fans were perched under it finding some kinda comfort in Jacobsen’s creation, Carlsberg. There was not much comfort up on the screen, where the bar staff, it will transpire the longer you linger, are playing the second half of Sunday’s Euro 2024 final on loop. Might as well get use out of the telly before it and the tournament bunting come down in the next few days.
When Cole Palmer’s delightful daisy cutter arrives on screen a fan in a perfectly apt retro 80’s England jersey turns to his friend and croaks “if we could just pause it there, man…” If, if if. The enduring, eternal conjunction of English football. It’ll become the burden of another man now, Gareth Southgate shuffling out to shake off the eight years of ifs which ultimately consumed him. Eddie Howe, Graham Potter, Frank Lampard (please Jesus could it be Frank!?) or perhaps even Jurgen Klopp will come in and pitch up to Dublin in September to begin their new Generation If.
But for all of us who hung around Brandenburg just a little before getting out of this place, Monday was a morning with plenty to ponder on. By its nature the end of an international tournament does this to us all. You over there, with your bagful of laundry and belly full of a month’s worth of German bread products, what was that all about then? Where do we go from here?
The answer to that last one is, in fact, home. As Alvaro Morata and Rodri hauled Henri Delaunay’s Cup over to the Spanish fans in the corner of the Olympiastadion the cascade of fireworks doubled as a curtain coming down on this Euros. When it comes up again we’ll (eventually) be in Ireland, co-hosting Euro 2028 with our three neighbours across the sea. Here’s an ‘If’: if the Euros had a flag changeover ceremony like the Olympics would the head of the German FA have been handing the pole to interim FAI CEO David Courell to give us a Boris-in-Beijing style wobble and wave?
What were the lessons for Ireland as host nation from this past month in Germany? Most importantly, try and make the trains run on time. Then again with Casement Park bound to stay a weeded pile of decay and Belfast unlikely to be a venue at all, trains won’t really matter. This is where you photoshop Transport Minister Eamon Ryan on to that Eddie-Murphy-tapping-his-forehead meme. “Can’t get blamed for slow trains when you don’t have any trains.” Dublin does, at least, have a walkable stadium, a small mercy but a luxury compared to Germany.
So much of the hosting nuts and bolts will, of course, be handled by UEFA rather than more parochial powers. Sunday night’s final in Berlin was a badly needed success story for Aleksandr Ceferin’s regime, the wide approach avenues of the Olympiastadion and Berlin’s wonderful U and S-Bahns well able to handle the English invasion and rapid retreat. Across the Atlantic, a grim contrast and worrying preview of the 2026 World Cup was provided by the Copa America Final when Miami was overrun amid chaotic scenes.
It feels like chaos is in vogue. The perma-chaos of these times stretch to football and among all the lessons of this historic fourth Spanish triumph, one is that a coherent plan can be your paddle and maybe your canoe too when the chaos throws you down the rapids. Luis de la Fuente was almost swept out in the justified torrent that coursed through the highest levels of Spanish football during the Luis Rubiales scandal.
But he stayed and stayed true to the plan, a new generation of players sticking with a Spanish ideal which has been the dominant one of this century. Rodri injured, Morata tired. No hay problema. Substitutes helped swing it for them, along with a multicultural wing tandem who’ve brought a sprinkle of fearless creativity to the Spain’s system.
Before taking the helm, Southgate had been part of a team that developed modern England’s blueprint of sorts. Yet here after eight years in charge he fell in on his Englishness of ‘maybe this same failing thing will work this time’. The first truly good side they came up against proved the folly of it. Surely Gerrard and Lampard will just click? Can’t Scholes just come off the left? There are now 2024 versions to join these in the annals: Maybe we’ll find a midfield when we get there? Surely Kane can’t be as lumbering and awful again? Here a flawed system had itself brought chaos and it was beyond the manager.
Ireland, of course, now has a system. A brand new one. No rush lads, 2024 as good a time as any to get around to it. But Marc Canham’s Pathways Plan looks dead on arrival. The disastrous Dáil hearings days after its unveiling, subsequent exit of Jonathan Hill, infighting among stubborn leagues and then the arduous, messy managerial search which resulted us in importing an Icelandic coach to show us how it’s done killing momentum. At Heimir Hallgrímsson’s disastrous unveiling, Canham was probed on his future and whether he may be looking for his own pathway — out.
Abbotstown, Ireland’s perma-chaos capital.
So as we boarded our return flights to the lands of mantras like ‘back to basics’ and ‘time for change’ the Spanish flew home with a familiar excess in the baggage hold: all of Europe’s envy. But envy without action is a pointless exercise. If the pragmatism of England, France, Portugal and others can be a lasting victim of Spain all of this will have been worth it.
Maybe Hallgrímsson will have answers for Ireland and maybe he will get to show them right away against Frank Lampard’s brave Lions. In the more notable words of J.C. Jacobsen’s creation, if Carlsberg did blind hope…