After 10 years of progress, England are transformed from the team that failed at Euro 2016. This is the story of how they came to be contenders to win the 2026 World Cup.
Looking back, Euro 2016 feels like the nadir.
There have been many low points for the England men’s team over the years since their only taste of glory in 1966. They failed to qualify for the 1994 World Cup and Euro 2008, missed four consecutive major tournaments between 1972 and 1978 despite having recently been crowned world champions, and finished bottom of their group at the 2014 World Cup.
But there’s a very good case to be made that being beaten by Iceland in the last 16 at the European Championship in France in 2016 was the lowest of the lows.
That’s because there was a hope at that point that a squad containing the attacking talents of Wayne Rooney, Harry Kane, recently-crowned Premier League champion Jamie Vardy, Dele Alli, Daniel Sturridge, Raheem Sterling and many others might be able to find a route into the latter stages of the competition.
As it was, they played poor football, created next to nothing and lost to a country with a population of just 330,000 and no international-football pedigree. After going ahead.
There had been gross disappointments before, such as the Euro 2012 defeat at the hands of Andrea Pirlo and Italy, Ronaldinho’s lob in 2002, and penalty heartache in 1990, 1996, 1998, 2004 and 2006.
But the disparity between expectations and reality has arguably never been greater than that terrible day in Nice when England were dreadful and deservedly crashed out to Iceland.
Over the decade since, however, a rebuild, led by Gareth Southgate, has taken England ever closer to glory.
The former manager ultimately failed to win a trophy, but under him, a belief returned to the England set-up that the dream of winning something wasn’t anywhere near as fanciful as it felt back when Roy Hodgson’s men were dumped out of Euro 2016.
This is the story of the rise of the England men’s team over the 10 years since that fateful night; this is how England have come to be one of the favourites heading into this summer’s 2026 World Cup.
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