Why Football Did Not Come Home
- By Bilal Hafeez
- 1 min read
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‘Football’s coming home’ was the anthem for England fans throughout the Euro 2020 football tournament. All the omens were positive. England reached their first major final since 1966, and it was at Wembley – just like that World Cup final. Surely, this was the one.
Yet it was not to be. In a cruel twist of fate, penalties led to Italy’s defeat of England. And how does the middle of the anthem go? ‘Everyone seems to know the score. They’ve seen it all before. They just know. They’re so sure. That England’s gonna throw it away. Gonna blow it away’.
But why did England play so poorly after the first 20-30 minutes? Stats from their performances through the tournament tell us the problems were building before. Three areas are worth highlighting:
- Attacking. For England’s seven matches, in only two did they have more attempts at goal than the opposition. And it was most acute in the final when Italy made 20 attempts versus England’s six over the 120 minutes (for the charts, we normalise to 90 minutes, Chart 1).
- Possession. Over the tournament, possession was less of an issue for England, but it was against the big sides. Against Germany, they only had 47% possession, and against Italy, it was an even lower 39% (Chart 2).
- Defence. But perhaps the biggest weakness was, surprisingly, on the defensive side. England were out-tackled in every match, with the final being the worst (Chart 3). So for all the talk of England’s clean sheets, they struggled to recover balls in close-quarters.
The lesson, it seems, was that England’s path to the final masked serious problems – most likely in midfield, where players could neither turn over possession nor service attackers. The good news is that England likely have the players to fix these problems. So perhaps for the World Cup next year, the rest of the anthem may come true: ‘But I know they can play. ‘Cause I remember. Three Lions on a shirt. Jules Rimet still gleaming.’
And most importantly, to ease the pain of England fans, we are offering a 50% discount on our annual subscriptions to Macro Hive for a whole week! Use code ‘EURO2020’. At least you will win in your macro and investment views.
