The Three Lions made it into the quarter-finals by the skin of their teeth after yet another abject performance – but how much longer can it go on?
Gareth Southgate must have done something right in a previous life. Because no matter how bad his England side keep playing during Euro 2024 and no matter how stubborn he is with his team selections, his side are somehow still in the tournament, just two matches away from reaching the final.
After three unconvincing displays in the group stages, England were at their very worst against Slovakia. They were on the brink of a humiliating elimination to file alongside their Euro 2016 defeat by Iceland as one of the national team’s worst ever results. But they managed to pull off a 2-1 win after extra-time and lived to fight another day.
Southgate played his part in the near disaster by making minimal changes to the team but, ironically, also got them out of it with a series of substitutions which smacked of desperation at the time but proved to be inspired.
The manager was helped by a moment of true brilliance from Jude Bellingham, who compensated for a near anonymous performance with a thunderous bicycle-kick in the 95th minute. Harry Kane also remembered he is a top-class forward and duly came up with the winning goal. But you had to feel for Slovakia, who deserved to go through but instead are still waiting for their first ever knockout win in a major tournament.
GOAL breaks down the winners & losers from the Veltins Arena..
WINNER: Jude Bellingham
Bellingham has scored a last-minute winners in El Clasico and a Diego Maradona-esque solo run against Napoli, but this must be the most important goal of his career to date, a devastating moment of genius when the sh*t was about to hit the fan.
It was also a reminder that the best players tend to come up with the goods just when it looks like its not going to be their day. Bellingham was performing terribly in Gelsenkirchen, and had it been any other player, or any other manager, then he would surely have been substituted already.
To tell the truth, Bellingham has been hugely disappointing at the Euros, delivering a stunning first-half display against Serbia (also in Gelsenkirchen) but then producing stinkers since. He had been overshadowed again by Phil Foden on Sunday, but while Southgate took the Manchester City man off, he kept Bellingham on. And the boy from Birmingham, not for the first time, proved his class.