The hour of steadily mounting pressure on the Denmark goal was the like of which England have not produced in 25 yearsGareth Southgate values control almost above anything else. For England, this has been a tournament about control. He has talked about aping Portugal at Euro 2016 and France at the World Cup, of learning how to manage games. But there are two ways of controlling games. There is controlling games by attacking, as England did with remarkable intensity and consistency between the start of the second half and the end of the first half of extra time, and there is controlling the game as England did in the second half of extra time, keeping the ball away from Denmark...
Semi-finals are meant to be tense struggles and Denmark pushed Southgate’s side all the way at WembleyOn into that new frontier. As Harry Kane turned to celebrate, with 103 minutes on the clock and the ball still spinning in Kasper Schmeichel’s net, England’s players seemed to be floating above the Wembley turf, taking in great fragrant gulps of air, eyes wide, fixing that moment in time.It had been a long road there, fringed with hazards and notes of danger. Related: England beat Denmark in extra time to set up Euro 2020 final with Italy Related: England’s dreaming: now a final awaits for the first time since 1966 Continue reading...
After a close, tense tussle with Denmark, England are into their first major men’s tournament final since 1966At 10.11pm on a cool Wednesday night at a febrile, fevered Wembley Stadium, Harry Kane stepped forward. It had been a tightly-knotted, impossibly close semi-final: the kind where the tension winds itself around your guts like a sickness, where the picture seems to blur a little at the edges, where everything feels real and not real at once. England and Denmark were locked at one-all. Thirteen minutes into extra time, Kane had the key.Kane stepped up to take his penalty: sturdily, not confidently, almost as if the baggage of 55 years was tethered to him as he ran. The penalty was saved by...
Without bellowing nor rage the manager plotted a route back into the semi-final and now the Euro 2020 final awaits There were 33 minutes on the clock at Wembley when Gareth Southgate decided that he had to do something before England descended into the kind of demented, frazzled state not seen in a major tournament since Brazil’s implosion in their World Cup semi-final against Germany seven years ago.Southgate being Southgate, a rather restrained gesture followed. There was no bellowing, no flinging of the arms, no rage as he plotted a way back into the semi-final. After all, it was a time for composure. England were a goal down to a smart and dangerous Denmark, their run of clean sheets ended...
The striker scored the goal that sent this semi-final into extra time – but there was heartbreak to come in the shootoutAlvaro Morata once likened facing Giorgio Chiellini to trying to take a banana off a gorilla in a cage. Here it looked like he had taken something much, much bigger from him but, in the end, Italy reached out and took it back: after an epic battle that place in the final on Sunday is theirs, not Spain’s.For Luis Enrique’s side, and especially for his striker, where there had been redemption, scoring the goal that had saved Spain once again, there was now regret, the cruelness deepened by how calmly Jorginho rolled in the decisive penalty at the culmination...