The previous time England were booed off after a World Cup group game, it was 2010 and we had just witnessed a performance so bad that a bird perched itself on the roof of the opposition net during the first half, convinced it had just found the safest spot in Cape Town.
On that occasion, a team including John Terry, Ashley Cole, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney had a torrid night, grateful for a 0-0 draw with Algeria, and England’s manager Fabio Capello put it down to fear: “the fear that stops the legs, that stops the mind, that stops everything”.
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Rooney, who had gone into that tournament with such high hopes, looked out of shape, out of form and out of sorts, his frustration boiling over at the final whistle when he heard England fans booing his team off.
“Nice to see your home fans booing you,” he shouted, witheringly, into a television camera. “You ‘loyal supporters’.”
In 2010 England were in the midst of a World Cup meltdown. Terry, who had been stripped of the captaincy four months earlier, announced in a press conference two days later that he and his team-mates were going to voice their frustrations with Capello at a meeting that evening.
“If it upsets him or it upsets any player, so what? I really think, ‘Sod it’,” Terry said, to the astonishment of many in his audience.
Capello stamped out this apparent insurrection and England beat Slovenia 1-0 in their final group game to scrape into the knockout stage. But by finishing second to the United States, they put themselves on course to face Germany in the round of 16. And there they were humiliated, thrashed 4-1, and Terry, Gerrard, Rooney and their team-mates returned home as something approaching national pariahs.
Qatar 2022 doesn’t feel anything like South Africa 2010. There was inhibition in England’s play as they drew 0-0 with the U.S. on Friday night, but it was not the “fear” that defined them in the late 2000s and through much of the 2010s. There is no prospect of a disillusioned player threatening a mutiny against the manager, or indeed of a player responding to the fans’ howls of derision by mocking their supposed loyalty to the cause.
Instead what we got on Friday night were calm, level-headed reflections from those players who stopped to speak to reporters in the mixed zone.
“It was probably a fair result if I’m being honest,” vice-captain Jordan Henderson told The Athletic afterwards. “It was a tough game. The USA did well and made it difficult for us, like we knew they would. Little bit disappointed that we haven’t scored, but still a positive in the fact that we kept a clean sheet, so it’s not all doom and gloom. It’s a point and it still puts in a good position and it’s in our hands for the next game.”
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The boos? “Obviously you’ve got high expectations of this team and so have we,” the Liverpool midfielder said. “We’ve come in after the game and of course we’re disappointed because we want to win every time we play, but that’s not how football works sometimes. You’ve got to give credit to the opposition and we always know it’s going to be difficult at a World Cup.”
When asked about the boos, Henderson pointed out the same thing happened at Wembley en route to the European Championship final last year. “I think it was the second game we drew 0-0 against Scotland,” he said. “So there’s still a lot to play for, we’re still in a good position and we just need to go out and make a point in the next game.”
Like his manager’s response, it was perfectly measured. Maybe too measured and too calm for some tastes.
It was one of those England tournament performances that gets people angry: the big build-up, the big expectations, the big emotional investment (and for those fans here in Qatar an enormous financial investment) and then the big let-down.
Michael Cox and John Muller analysed England’s performance in depth here: slow tempo; too risk-averse in possession; the struggles of Kieran Trippier, Luke Shaw, Jude Bellingham and Mason Mount to make an impact going forward against a spirited, well-organised, talented U.S. team who were intent on pushing them back; the conservative nature of Southgate’s substitutions, waiting 65 minutes before making two like-for-like changes and keeping Phil Foden and Trent Alexander-Arnold on the bench throughout.
The criticisms are legitimate, but so is the context offered in mitigation. “Of course the fans want to see goals and to win matches,” Trippier said. “Of course we understand the frustration because we didn’t win the game, but we gave everything. A point is a good result. Unfortunately we didn’t win, but it’s a good point. We kept a clean sheet, it’s a good point for us in the group and we just move on now. Focus on the next game.”
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All true. The performance was disappointing, but a draw, on the back of a 6-2 win over Iran, left them all but guaranteed a place in the knockout stage. Even if Wales were to beat them by three goals on Tuesday, England would go through. Most teams at this tournament would gladly accept that scenario going into their final group game; Argentina and Germany, beaten by Saudi Arabia and Japan respectively, certainly would.
It certainly isn’t a 2010 scenario — let alone a repeat of four years later, when England were out after two games, beaten by Italy and Uruguay. That was a much tougher group in 2014 and the pool of talent available to Roy Hodgson was far less appealing than it is for Southgate now, but also expectations were significantly lower; after a dire 0-0 draw in their final game in Brazil, a dead-rubber against Costa Rica, England’s players were warmly applauded off by those fans who had travelled so far and spent so much and been given so little to cheer.
Two years later in Nice they were knocked out of the European Championship by Iceland. Now that one did attract an angry, almost incredulous reaction from the fans. How could it not? That was a calamitous performance devoid of structure, purpose and belief, never mind cohesion or skill. If ever there was a time when England fans were entitled to boo and deride their team, it was in the mid-2010s.
Between 2010 and 2016 England played 15 tournament matches and won just four (against Slovenia, Sweden, Ukraine and Wales) and never by more than a single-goal margin. The unexpected run to the World Cup semi-final in 2018 came with caveats about the standard of the opposition, but they overcame Tunisia, Panama, Colombia (on penalties) and Sweden at that tournament and beat Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Ukraine and Denmark at the Euros before losing to Italy on penalties in the final.
In that context, it feels as if England’s fans have developed a remarkably low tolerance for underperformance, booing them off after mediocre displays but decent results that left the team in a strong position. Maybe Friday night was a legacy of a hugely disappointing Nations League (six games, three draws, three defeats, including a 4-0 thrashing at home by Hungary) but given that the same reaction followed the draw against Scotland at the Euros, maybe it is just a case of a fanbase feeling entitled to demand better.
Perfectly natural, of course; it can be difficult to look at the young talent in this squad — both those on the pitch and those left on the bench, like Foden and Alexander-Arnold — and accept such an underwhelming performance.
That frustration is partly down to the approach. Southgate’s style is fairly cautious — not blanket defence by any means, but safety-first for the most part. They played with freedom when they beat Iran 6-2 on Monday, but on Friday night it was very much a case of handbrake on. And when you play with the handbrake on and you fail to win, that causes agitation, particularly when you have so many attacking players at your disposal.
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But these games happen in tournaments; take a look through England’s World Cup history and the 6-2 victory over Iran seems far more of an outlier than a 0-0 draw with the U.S.
It is encouraging that Southgate and his players responded more calmly on Friday — both to the way the game transpired and the disappointment that the fans aired at the final whistle — than England’s players did in Cape Town 12 years ago. There are plenty of things their performance lacked, but at no point did they appear frozen by fear or overcome by frustration like Rooney against Algeria.
There was something Southgate said afterwards: “People are going to react how they’re going to react. I can’t let that affect how I feel. This is the tournament of external noise, and we’ll have another layer of that I’m sure, but we’re still on track.”
“The tournament of external noise” is a great line. There have been many previous tournaments in the past when England have appeared overwhelmed by that noise — particularly the noise from the media — but under Southgate they have been pretty good at blocking it out and rising above it.
Once the noise starts, the only way to stop it amplifying is by winning. This is Southgate’s third tournament and, having created a more upbeat soundtrack at the previous two, he and his team need to keep those good vibes going. If not, they will just have to face the music.
(Top photo: Berengui/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)