In spite of Sunday’s loss, Gareth Southgate’s reputation as one of the best managers this country has ever had is cemented. And as has been widely reported, Southgate is the only England manager in history to qualify for two major tournament finals. It’s hard to overstate the magnitude of this achievement. Simply put, as the ever-laconic Harry Kane did last month: “We haven’t won anything as a nation for a long, long time.”
While it is true that under Southgate, the men’s national team have come the closest of any previous iteration to win a major international trophy since 1966, and this is the first time they have reached a final on foreign soil, has anyone remembered when Sarina Wiegman and the Lionesses triumphed at the Euros in 2022 and reached the final of the World Cup the year after? (They lost to Spain, whose epochal win, incidentally, was overshadowed after the former head of the Spanish football federation Luis Rubiales kissed player Jenni Hermoso.)
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