sport news IAN LADYMAN: England can dare to dream! Tournament know-how gives Gareth ... trends now
England arrived in Qatar with Gareth Southgate leading a squad that even some of his sternest critics may also have chosen.
Whether it is a squad good enough to actually win a World Cup is the question that hangs over it now.
Southgate and the Football Association have had their eyes on this tournament for a long time.
Gareth Southgate and the FA have had their eyes on the 2022 World Cup in Qatar for a while
As soon as the whistle blew at the semi-final stage on their 2018 campaign in Russia, this was a World Cup that England began to feel as though they could possibly win.
That has seemed a remote possibility for much of this year. England’s form has been wretched, the individual career trajectories of some of our key players suddenly facing in the wrong direction.
But World Cups always provoke optimism and England’s is not entirely unfounded. It is better to have players carrying uncertain form into a big month than to have a group that was never going to be good enough in the first place.
The England squad have arrived in Doha, Qatar ahead of the major tournament this winter
England do have a group of footballers talented enough to win big games and go deep into this winter in Doha. With a massive 820 caps between them, they have players with big tournament experience. That is arguably just as important.
But it is hard to escape the feeling that Southgate’s England will need a perfect desert storm if they are progress further than the last eight.
They will need their key players — men such as Harry Maguire, Jordan Pickford, Declan Rice, Phil Foden and Harry Kane — to find their best form and, just as importantly, to be given the freedom and licence to play by their manager.
England will also need a kind draw beyond the group stages and as always they will need some luck.
England will need all of their key players to find their best form during the major tournament
It can happen, though. To a degree it did so last summer on home soil as these things came together to propel England to a European Championship final that was lost on penalties to Italy.
Three years previously, in Russia, England were not required to beat a team of any great standing — only Colombia on penalties and then Sweden in the knockout stages — before losing to Croatia in the last four. That is what we mean when we talk about luck.
It is said that football teams need to keep moving forwards if they are not to wither. When we look at where England where when World Cup qualification ended — two real-time defeats in 32 games — to where they are now — no wins in six — then the threat to the national team and indeed to the future of their coach is very real.
But everything was not perfectly set ahead of last summer’s tournament either. Maguire and Raheem Sterling had no form. Captain Kane looked exhausted after a long season with Tottenham.
Two games into the Euros, after a lame 0-0 with Scotland in which the opposition were the better team, there were calls for Kane to be dropped. Much of that was forgotten once the summer was kick started with victory over Germany on an electric night at Wembley at the first knockout stage.
This is what can happen at tournaments. Russia 2018 was Southgate’s first as manager. The previous one, Euro 2016 in France, had been ended by Iceland at the first knockout stage.
But once England beat Panama 6-1 in their second group game in Nizhny Novgorod, things changed. Something as simple as one result can shift a direction and inject purpose into a campaign.
It can be one game or even just one moment or one goal.
