In Euro 2016, England had a quarter-final to look forward to. They were set to face France in Paris. Until they weren’t. The last-16 tie against Iceland turned into one of the most chastening days in the history of the national team.
It was also a turning point; in several ways, really. Roy Hodgson departed, his decision not to scout Iceland in person and to instead accompany his assistant, Ray Lewington, on a boat trip on the Seine destined for infamy. Since then, however, England are five out of five. When Thomas Tuchel takes his team to Miami, it will be a fifth successive quarter-final. No other country has reached the last eight of each of the last three World Cups and two European Championships.
Much of the credit rests with Gareth Southgate; his quartet of quarter-finals is an achievement. England became a team who expected to travel deep into competitions. A shift in mentality came with a tendency to start better: include Tuchel’s World Cup and England have topped the group in their last four tournaments and lost once in 15 pool games. Winning the group tends to provide the simplest route to the quarter-finals; the one time England did not, in 2018, it actually provided a more feasible path to the last four because reigning champions Germany, their prospective last-eight opponents, instead crashed out in the first stage.
But, across their history, England have been different kinds of quarter-final teams. In the last decade, they have been one who can progress from them: beat Norway and they will have won four out of five. Before then, it often tended to be their glass ceiling. When Southgate’s side saw off Sweden in 2018, it was England’s first quarter-final win in 22 years, their first on foreign soil for 28 and in 90 minutes since 1966.
It was a break with the past and not merely because, after Sven-Goran Eriksson’s three straight quarter-finals, England only had one more until 2018. The last decade shows that, without winning anything, England have been better at navigating the knockout rounds, and competitions in general. It explains why some of the most impressive records of any England players ever in the business end of competitions belong to men such as Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, Declan Rice, John Stones and Jordan Pickford.
And yet it is also notable who their quarter-final victims have been. Under Southgate, they were Sweden, Ukraine and Switzerland; none of the regular superpowers. Tuchel faces Norway, conquerors of Italy in qualifying and Brazil in the last 16, possessors of one of the world’s finest strikers, in Erling Haaland, and arguably one of the top 10 international teams today; yet also a side never previously seen on this stage. There can be a self-perpetuating element to success; the countries who win quarter-finals are often the ones who usually do.
Consider England’s quarter-final record. In 1990, they beat Cameroon, in Cameroon’s first experience of the last eight of a World Cup, and in 1996, Spain, but on penalties and at Wembley.
Their quarter-final defeats have come to West Germany in 1970, Argentina in 1986, Brazil in 2002, Italy in 2012 and France in 2022; the superpowers. Portugal, who eliminated them in 2004 and 2006, may not quite qualify as such but there was the combination of a golden generation, a World Cup-winning manager, in Luiz Felipe Scolari, and home advantage, on the former occasion. In 1982, in a different format, England’s de facto quarter-finals were against West Germany and the hosts Spain.
The various managers, from Sir Alf Ramsey to Hodgson via Ron Greenwood, Bobby Robson and Eriksson, may have relished an encounter with Sweden, Ukraine or Switzerland (though perhaps not Eriksson in the case of his homeland, which he struggled to beat). In each case, though, England faced a team who seemed to have gone a round further than might be expected.
The same may be said of Norway now, particularly when the draw positioned them to meet Brazil in the last 16. The counter-argument is that, in Haaland, they have a match-winner of the kind Sweden, Ukraine and Switzerland arguably lacked.
But if for half a century England rarely entered a quarter-final as favourites and if, for all the inquests after they went out of the tournaments, none of the results were disastrous in themselves, there is still an art to winning the winnable games.
England have tended to do that in the last decade. They have also succeeded where they failed before. In Mexico, unlike in Spain or Portugal, they won what was in effect an away match against the hosts. In Euro 2020, unlike in many another tournament since 1966, they did beat Germany, but in the last 16.
The quarter-finals are no longer their kryptonite. After winning three in tournaments in their history, they have won three in eight years. A fourth would mark a shift in their identity, from a team who sometimes reached quarter-finals to one who often won them.
