sport news FA guru John McDermott claims England's long wait for a major trophy could soon ... trends now

John McDermott appreciates that victors have a tendency to be overly magnanimous. Showering a defeated opponent with praise is another way of congratulating yourself on being brilliant.

Yet the relationships the FA’s technical director has built up over more than 30 years in the professional game, working for Watford, Tottenham and the FA, mean that some professional players are trusted friends and candid even when opponents.

And it was speaking with a France player in the Al Bayt Stadium on the night of December 10, in the aftermath of England’s 2-1 defeat in the World Cup quarter-finals by France, that the reality of how close Gareth Southgate’s team are to winning the World Cup truly crystallised in McDermott’s mind.

Not that he didn’t know it before. The evidence of the game, the progress through the tournament and over the years with Southgate means there is data which objectively says England are but a step away from that major trophy.

But this conversation confirmed it. ‘After the France game, the feeling in the camp [was] of surprise: surprise by our own players [that we lost],’ said McDermott.

‘And it wasn’t just the belief of our players. I was sat on steps with one of the French players and it was like, “Wow, we were on the rocks there”. There is a real belief that we are good enough and our players believe that we can win the next tournament and believe that we could have won in Qatar.

‘There is tangible data in what this team is doing. They are accumulating evidence that we can win and that we are going to win. There is that inner belief but also something I sense when I am with the players and in the camp, that it is not faux. There is a genuine, authentic belief that this group of lads are going to do it.’

That result against France and the broadly positive feedback that this was a team but a step away set off a domino effect that would make McDermott’s life a little easier in the short term. When it comes to choosing England managers, McDermott is now the key football voice in the FA building. With chief executive Mark Bullingham, he would lead the search for a new manager.

Had the reaction to Southgate’s World Cup been overwhelmingly negative, Southgate would have gone. And even given his decision to stay, his contract ends in December 2024, six months after next summer’s Euros and McDermott always needs to have a potential alternative. 

‘What happens next is always going to be on your mind. It would be remiss of any of us in a leadership position not to be thinking about that,’ he said.

‘June had been tough before the World Cup, September was tough, [there were] a lot of unknowns. I saw Gareth grow out there. He enjoyed it. You probably saw that publicly but privately as well, the way he was with the players, he was in his absolute element.

‘Obviously, in the end I was delighted for him that he wanted to continue. At the time, did it [his succession] take up some of my thinking? Yes. Does it now? Probably not as much because we are now secure and have got off to a brilliant start and looking forward now to hopefully qualify for Germany and Euro 2024. 

'And then Gareth’s got six months on his contract after the end of the tournament in Germany as well. It does not take up a lot of my head space at the moment.

‘Gareth is a 100 per cent authentic in wanting to do the right thing for the team, I have no doubt about that. When he was sensing the heat that is coming on him [his thought was]: is that diluting the experience of the players? 

'We came into the last window of international games thinking we haven’t beaten Italy away since 1963, this is going to be a tough gig, Ukraine are going to beat some teams, they are excellent. We believed in our players but were wondering where the

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