Euro 2024: England can take belief from the unbelievable after epic Slovakia turnaround

Was that it for England? Were those couple of minutes either side of the end of the regulation 90 the moment the Three Lions finally, finally arrived at Euro 2024?

We’re honestly not sure we understand football anymore after watching that. England were absolutely rancid again for 95 minutes, failing even to muster a shot on target, and were deservedly heading out of Euro 2024.

Our reaction piece was written. The final nail was in Gareth Southgate’s managerial coffin. England were back to exactly where they had been eight years ago with that humiliation at Iceland’s hands. Yet here we sit, talking about England progressing to the quarter-finals after a sensational turnaround that will have left Gareth Southgate reaching for far stronger words than Sir Alex Ferguson’s famous ‘bloody hell’.

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England's unbelievable turnaround can finally spark belief

Jude Bellingham’s overhead kick off Kyle Walker’s long throw – helped on its way by Marc Guehi’s flick-on – earned England an extremely late reprieve, but no guarantee that extra time would bring anything different from the wretched 90…no, 360 minutes that had preceded it.

Less than a minute after play resumed, though, Harry Kane had put England ahead, converting another flick-on from desperate injury time substitute Ivan Toney.

England had seen their impending certain doom, yet somehow sidestepped it. The players looked just as disbelieving as the rest of us watching at home. And yet from that disbelief, belief can now arise.

As woeful as they have been, going a goal down to Ivan Schranz’s strike marked the first time this tournament that England have faced any genuine jeopardy, given that their victory over toothless Serbia – secured by an early Bellingham goal – gave them two more games to guarantee their progress past the group stage. Thanks to results elsewhere, they only actually needed one.

Southgate refused to use the opportunity of his free hit against Slovenia to experiment with his shape and selection, but his hand was forced by their need to find an equaliser here. The line-up that started extra time included Kane and Toney up top, Bellingham and Cole Palmer in midfield, and Bukayo Saka at left-back – all suggestions that fans and pundits alike had screamed for, but had seemingly been deemed to be throwing altogether too much caution to the wind for Southgate’s liking.

Might this experience finally change his mind? Because although we can’t be certain that bolder approach would definitely work over 90 minutes against stronger and (hopefully) stronger opposition, the one thing we do know is that England could not carry on as they had been in that stodgy, patternless 4-2-3-1, with a rotating cast of central midfielders the only change Southgate had made to his side in any of England’s four games.

Whatever team gets picked against Switzerland, they should at least go into it with the belief that anything is possible again. This ridiculous comeback immediately put us back in the emotional realm of the summer of waistcoats, Eric Dier’s penalty against Colombia, Germany finally vanquished, going to Wembley for a final.

The danger, of course, is that this game should never have seemed impossible to begin with. England are, on paper, among the best teams out there in Germany; they just haven’t been on the pitch.

We cannot emphasise enough just how lucky England were to get away with it here. This was Final Destination stuff, and the headlines they have miraculously avoided will come hunting for them again next Saturday evening unless they find a way to stop them once and for all.

For tonight, though...football, bloody hell.

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