Thank you Arsenal for reminding England of the poverty of diffidence. If they approach the World Cup as Arsenal did the Champions League final, England may not survive the group stage.
Thomas Tuchel emphasised the importance of team ethic and structure in leaving behind a cohort of stylists, including Cole Palmer, Phil Foden, Morgan Gibbs-White and Adam Wharton, raising the prospect of a minimalist summer. Surely we learned at the cautious hands of Gareth Southgate the limits of setting up a team to nullify the opposition.
Mikel Arteta might argue that Arsenal were only a couple of bad penalties from toppling the best team in Europe, but that would be to overstate a method described by French sport bible L’Equipe as a double-parking of the bus. It was also a repudiation of the attacking principles inculcated at the Barcelona academy.
There is no future for any team with only 24 per cent possession. For the 83 minutes he was on the pitch, Bukayo Saka, one of England’s signature blades, was back at full-back, where he started his career.
The issue was less technical than mental. Paris Saint-Germain are fearless and spent the greater part of the night in Arsenal’s half and entirely in their heads. Arteta played it like Southgate and would have been hailed a genius had he pulled it off. Yet the chances of doing so are significantly reduced when control is ceded so readily to opponents who cherish the ball.
Saka spent much of the final covering at full-back (Photo: Getty)PSG were PSG, concerned only with themselves. This is the lesson Arteta must learn and Tuchel heed. Success is rooted between the ears in unshakable self-belief and a sense of mission.
Yes, Luis Enrique has an exceptional front three, but none of it is inevitable.
Ousmane Dembele was erratic and peripheral at Barcelona. Imbued with confidence and purpose the same player decides matches under Enrique. Ditto Desire Doue and the mesmerising Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.
The most effective way to defuse potency is to inflict your own, as Bayern Munich did in the Champions League semi-final first leg in Paris. PSG won by the odd goal in nine yet looked vulnerable.It might be that England are eclipsed by a better team in the coming seven weeks. Spain, France, Portugal, Argentina and Brazil are all capable of winning and none of them sit back as England did in the Euro 2024 final against a Spanish team set up not unlike PSG.
That is the message for Tuchel to absorb. The game has moved on. It rewards vibrant, attacking teams that focus on their own strengths, not the opposition’s.
What a missed opportunity Budapest was for the English champions and the English game. A clean sweep of European trophies was there to be had, reinforcing the sense of Premier League supremacy.
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Daniel Storey: I’m driving 7,200 miles to tell the story of a World Cup like no other Kat Lucas: Mikel Arteta has to ditch Southgate mentality to take Arsenal to next levelThe message should have been “We are Arsenal, catch us if you can”. Instead Arteta opted for supine resistance, handing the initiative straight to PSG. Saka, Declan Rice, Martin Odegaard, William Saliba and Gabriel are way better than that. As is Eberechi Eze, had Arteta the courage to start him.
Southgate took England to two European Championship finals and a World Cup semi-final, falling in much the same way against Croatia, Italy and Spain. Ironically, Southgate’s best performance against a top-ranked team came in Qatar where England were the better side in a losing quarter-final against France.
Had they played like that in Moscow, London or Berlin the wait for a second major trophy might already be over – and the fear of losing, somebody else’s complex.
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