Cheers! The pints flew up and the beer rained down. Not once, not twice, not three times, but four times – and English football fans still couldn’t get enough of them. With every goal on Saturday evening at prime time, the country fell further and further into ecstasy. The BBC commentator called out early on to the nation: “Enjoy your drinks!” The almost intoxicated state of the country should last at least until Wednesday, when England will contest a European Championship semi-finals for the first time since 1996 in a duel with Denmark.
In addition to the furious and safe 4: 0 in the quarter-finals over Ukraine in Rome, the team of national coach Gareth Southgate presented their own fans with another souvenir: the next home game at Wembley. In the English national stadium, where the Three Lions have so far played their three preliminary round matches and the round of 16, all final games of this European Championship will now take place – with 60,000 spectators, more than ever since the beginning of the pandemic.
The mood of the population on the island, who now not only dreams of their first title after winning the World Cup in 1966, but is also firmly convinced of it, was best given by the Daily Mirror on game day again. “Yes we Kane” was the title of the tabloid – and how captain Harry Kane and his teammates could. After just 212 seconds, Kane gave the direction for his teammates with his second tournament goal. It was the earliest European Championship goal by the English since Michael Owen’s goal in the lost quarter-final duel with Portugal in 2004, and one that soon erased all memories of the disgrace in the European Championship round of 16 against Iceland five years ago.
England’s defense have been clean for more than eleven hours
The Three Lions then cleared the last doubts in the second half when defensive colossus Harry Maguire scored less than a minute after the restart and shortly afterwards Kane again put the ball in the Ukrainian goal (50th minute). With Maguire’s wonderful header, England scored their first goal after a standard at this tournament, the great strength of the last World Cup in 2018. This quality was again evident at the corner in the 63rd minute when substitute midfielder Jordan Henderson scored his first goal in 62nd international match headed. The fifth game without a goal in a row in this tournament felt like a fifth goal for England, which means that their own defense has now been undefeated for more than eleven hours.
The ball to 2-0 into the Ukrainian goal: England’s Harry Maguire (center).
(Photo: Nick Potts / PA Images / imago)
England, who had just fallen in love with the national team, was reluctant to let Southgate’s football team fly out to Rome on Friday. Because of this, the Times a postcard of the team, with Southgate in the foreground and the Colosseum as one of the outstanding sights of the Italian capital in the background. The greeting to the home country: “Wish you were here!” This is exactly how it felt – with the exception of around 2500 English fans in the Stadio Olimpico – for the rest of the population at home in front of the TVs, who in turn wanted nothing more than to see their own team play against Ukraine at Wembley.
To forget the grief, retailers reckoned that people would have spent an estimated £ 350 million in the short term to stock up on food and drink at home for the game of the year so far. About 14 million people announced that they would organize a barbecue. This coincided with the information from the discounter Aldi, who sold 50 million burgers, sausages and steaks for the occasion. The football fans left a further 150 million pounds in the countless pubs and bars of the country, with the extrapolation for each English hit that 40,000 pints of beer would blow up. According to this, 160,000 pints should now have blown up instead of thirsty English throats.
Southgate is throwing caution overboard – at least for one game
Southgate tried to continue this nationwide wave of euphoria in his line-up by only making two personnel changes after the historic 2-0 over Germany four days ago. Although his two midfielders Declan Rice and Kalvin Phillips, as well as defense chief Maguire, would have been suspended in the semifinals if they had received another yellow card, they were both in the starting line-up. In doing so, Southgate complied with the tabloid’s request Sunwho wanted to see “caution” thrown overboard.
With playmaker Mason Mount and outside attacker Jadon Sancho, who was quarantined for ten days as a precaution until last Monday, England returned to the successfully practiced 4-3-3 from the preliminary round. The plan was, with the lightning-fast Sterling on the left and Sancho on the right – whose 85 million transfer from Borussia Dortmund to Manchester United had been confirmed on Thursday – the dense defensive line of the Ukrainians was to be pulled apart to leave room for Mount and Kane in between create. This succeeded in an exemplary manner with the opening goal: after a dribble across the defensive line, Sterling put his storm colleague Kane in the limelight with a fine pass into the intersection.
As was to be expected, England dominated the game from comfortable possession almost at will. Sancho almost scored his first goal in his first starting eleven in a competitive game for the Three Lions after ten months. His shot in the penalty area was not precise enough. The dominance moved the most famous footballer of Ukraine and current national coach Andriy Shevchenko, known on the island from his time as a player at Chelsea, to an early paradigm shift. After half an hour, Shevchenko adapted his own 3-5-2 arrangement to the English alignment, but his team still couldn’t match the quality of the opponent.
Left winger Oleksandr Zinchenko, who is under contract with champions Manchester City, had already indicated in advance that the English reservists were worth three times as much as the Ukrainian squad. This class difference was particularly noticeable in the second half, when the English scored three goals per head for the first time in the history of a European Championship – a total of four hits, more than ever in a knockout game since the final victory Germany at the 1966 World Cup.