This article is part of Football FanCast’s Opinion series, which provides analysis, insight and opinion on any issue within the beautiful game, from Paul Pogba’s haircuts to League Two relegation battles…
What is the point of international qualifiers?
For the smaller nations, perhaps it is an opportunity to take a few scalps, to potentially sneak into a tournament and then see what happens. Think Iceland in 2016, when they went to the European Championships, won hearts across the globe and even beat England.
But for the bigger nations, for the Three Lions, what’s the point?
On Thursday, this question again surfaced, as they thumped Montenegro 7-0 to officially seal their qualification for Euro 2020.
Five of those goals were scored before half-time. There was never once any jeopardy in this match, never once a feeling of a potentially embarrassing defeat.
Montenegro actually scored first in the reverse fixture but were swiftly corrected and beaten 5-1 by a clinical, efficient England side.
Gareth Southgate’s men played well. Harry Kane scored a hat-trick. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Marcus Rashford and Tammy Abraham were also on the scoresheet. There was also a Montenegro own goal, salt in the wounds. Raheem Sterling was not missed. It was the youngest England team since 1959, playing in the country’s 1,oooth fixture.
Why bother?
It’s becoming increasingly tiresome to see England in these sorts of games. The group also consists of the Czech Republic, Kosovo and Bulgaria. It has to be said that Southgate’s men lost to the former in Prague, but that was an exception. It was the first qualifier they had lost in a decade. They had beaten them 5-0 at home. In the other games, they have scored at least four goals against each opponent.
Glenn Hoddle said on commentary, as the match reached its conclusion, that this Three Lions team wouldn’t know how good they were until they actually reached the finals and played their first game in the competition, and this is the nub of the issue.
Per WhoScored, England had 17 shots to Montenegro’s six. They had over 66% possession and won seven corners to their opposition’s three. Ben Chilwell had a field day down the left flank, racking up a hat-trick of assists.
This is not to diminish the Leicester City’s star’s performance because he should be the first-choice left-back from here on in, but it is to show that England saw a weakness, exploited it ruthlessly while the visitors struggled on helplessly.
To look at the group table is to see England three points clear of the Czechs. They have scored 33 goals and conceded six, leading to a goal difference of 27. The Czech Republic, by comparison, have a goal difference of 3.
We don’t learn anything from these games. We knew before this match that Kane could score goals if given the chances, that Chilwell could cross, that Abraham was an instinctive penalty box finisher. This only reinforces it because the opposition is weak and Southgate, as is his right, picked a strong team.
But it does nothing to answer the big questions. Has this team grown from the experience at the World Cup in 2018? Can they now handle the pressure of a semi-final? Heading into what could be described as a home tournament, given that the semis and the final will be played at Wembley, as will their three group games, can this team live up to the expectation that will inevitably be placed upon them and that they were freed of in 2018?
We don’t know, because they’ve been playing Montenegro and Bulgaria, instead of France or Spain or Germany.
It remains to be seen what team will turn up to the tournament next summer and whether they can go two steps better than they did in Russia and win the thing.
As it is, they are just as much in the dark as we are.
