Heroball and nothing else

England prove capable of shuffling their corpse towards a Bellingham bailout.

This is Editor’s Take: during EURO2024, home of the SCOUTED team’s quick-fire thoughts on the tournament as it happens.

For ninety-five minutes, there was nothing. No energy, no direction. No shot on target. No guile nor shape nor feeling. I watched it as I assume most England fans did: surrounded by friends, in near-total silence. Staring at a screen. We quietly passed complaints and armchair tactics but even the usual gusto we summoned for disdain had seeped away. All the life had gone.

Jonathan Liew described it as disassociation and that feels apt. For ninety-five minutes a nation threw up their armour against the impending and inevitable defeat. We didn’t really care, actually - back to real life, elections, global warming. Important stuff, not this silly football. The team embodied that feeling and played with total emotional surrender to their humdrum fate. They played like they were preparing for defeat, for the microphones and crowds and flashing lights they would face after, the monotonous hum of an aeroplane engine. Home to an island that would hardly muster disappointment, then. Would that be so bad? It’s all the same, either way. At least defeat would bring a a quick and merciful end.

Fifteen minutes of wobble, of the group stage’s ‘most solid and durable’ defence put finally under strain. It quickly and predictably cracked. Marc Guehi threw himself in front of an early shot as if to muster some sense of purpose amongst his compatriots. Kyle Walker responded by, minutes later, wandering off on a bizarre jaunt that allowed Slovakia the freedom of the penalty area. The goal was probably celebrated by David Strelec and Ivan Schranz skipping away and giggling like schoolchildren. So easy! So fun! I wouldn’t know - my eyes had rolled so far into my forehead I was temporarily blind.

Eighty minutes more to add to the 270 we’ve seen so far. That’s all those minutes felt like: more. It’s all become an amorphous blob in the memory. Who are we trying to break down now? Slovenia still? Serbia? When was that? Declan Rice hit the post…yesterday? Phil Foden has scored at least two offside goals, I think. Kieran Trippier has spent several days on the left touchline, several years knocking passes back to Guehi with his right foot. Oh, Bukayo Saka’s moved to left-back. Didn’t Ian Wright suggest that? Or did I dream it? Ivan Toney’s here, that’s nice.

I thought a lot about 2018 and 2020 and 2022. There’s no sun anymore. I mean that both literally and as pathetic fallacy. The summer of 2018 was under a sun so hot it felt alien. Harry Maguire’s massive head appeared on every screen - throngs of red-and-white shirts gathered beneath, drinking, dancing, together. Maguire slammed a header past Sweden. Dele Alli added a second. Jubilation, but something more: purpose. A month earlier, the local elections had seen an 8% swing towards a truly progressive left. Something was changing. England were in a World-Cup semi-final. The manager was wearing a waistcoat. The words ‘Covid-19’ were mumbo-jumbo.

Then the world broke. But Croatia were felled in 2020’s opening game. Revenge, joy, purpose. England were never pretty, nor free from the circus of discontent. But we all felt it. Sixteen months of loneliness and isolation, of tattered community. In the middle of all that mess, we had this.

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There’s no sun anymore. There’s almost no feeling at all. There is an election this week. Is anyone expecting change? What has happened to our hope? Phil Foden is on the left wing and drifting inside. It’s more of the same. It’s all the same. Declan Rice hits the post. It’s all become one thing, one mass, one awful dream. Kieran Trippier, then Marc Guehi. Ninety minutes of nothing. No direction, no feeling. No purpose. Kyle Walker, where are you going now? Ninety-four minutes. Ninety-five. And then…then there was a throw-in.

All those summers exploded from Jude Bellingham’s right foot as he threw himself over his head. For a moment, one glorious moment, we remembered. The feeling returned. All the hope, all the meaning. Purpose - or the shadow of it.

Who else, Bellingham screamed as he looked a nation of disbelievers in the eye. Who else?

It was both a roar of defiance and the most prescient thing anyone has said about England so far. Who else indeed? There is nobody. This England are, at once, a staggering assembly of talent and the shade of a team only capable of shuffling towards a Bellingham bailout. ‘Who else’ is a tacit concession that this side is just a collection of individuals. Who else? Not the team, of course. Who else, what else, but heroball? They have nothing else. This is the perfected form of footballing austerity: the best player in the world, doing what he does. What use could tactics and systems be in the face of that?

England are about to find out. They will play Switzerland next weekend. Murat Yakin’s side have just taken Italy apart as if brushing aside children. “I knew if the Italians came with a back four,” Yakin said afterwards, “we would destroy them.” England will play with a back four, put your house on it. The individuals are about to come up against the system.

Who else was the shout, but what else must be asked. Bukayo Saka at left-back? Anthony Gordon, freshly bruised? Kobbie Mainoo or Conor Gallagher? Who cares. Towards the end of Slovakia, England had arguably more attacking talent on the pitch than any other side has mustered at this tournament so far. Bukayo Saka. Cole Palmer. Jude Bellingham. Harry Kane. Eberechi Eze. Phil Foden. On a normal day that would be overkill of an absurd proportion. Yesterday, those six could not muster a single shot on target.

Until they did. Or, more accurately: he did.

England will play a quarter-final in a European Championship and, honestly, can anyone find the feeling? Heroball might carry this team all the way yet. But it means so little without something real and breathing to believe in. The heart breaks not because England will lose to Switzerland, but because a nation will hardly care.

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