'I’m a believer in dreams': Southgate wants glory so England gets respect of soccer world

BERLIN (AP) — For the English, it’s largely self-deprecating banter.

For pretty much everybody else, it’s a sign of arrogance and entitlement.

“Football’s Coming Home” — the England team soccer anthem — has been sung on the streets of cities throughout Germany over the past month, and will be roared with even more gusto in Berlin in the next 24 hours.

England is in the European Championship final against Spain on Sunday, a chance for the underachieving birthplace of soccer to capture a major men's title for the first time since the 1966 World Cup on home soil.

A chance, it is being said by England, for football to come home.

“I’m not a believer in fairy tales,” England coach Gareth Southgate said on Saturday, “but I'm a believer in dreams.”

Southgate has played a central role in England’s painful journey of agonizing exits, near-misses and national angst down the years.

It was Southgate, England’s coach since 2016, who led the team to a first major final since 1966 only to lose to Italy in a penalty shootout in the 2021 Euro final.

Twenty-five years earlier, it was Southgate — then a defender of modest ability — who missed what proved to be a decisive penalty in England's shootout defeat to Germany in the Euro 1996 semifinals.

The “Football’s Coming Home” anthem is born from the “Three Lions” song that was released before Euro 1996.

One of its lines spoke of “30 years of hurt." It is now 58 years of hurt, and the fans are still singing it.

“It has been going on for years and years,” said England fan Justin Tucknott, a 54-year-old business analyst who was grabbing a beer at a bar near Olympiastadion in a sun-kissed evening in the German capital.

“We're going to keep singing it until it does come home. And when it does, the words will be changed slightly.”

England’s chances of ending that men’s title drought approaching nearly 60 years have improved under Southgate, with the team reaching back-to-back Euro finals and getting to the World Cup semifinals in 2018.

He has had to change the mentality and culture in a squad that is regularly full of some of the top players in the English Premier League, the most popular and watched domestic league in the world.

Famous and rich, the players maybe thought they had a divine right to win titles at international level as often as they do at club level.

Southgate quickly drummed it into them that they don’t.

“We have tried to change the mindset from the start, tried to be more honest about where we were as a football nation,” Southgate said. “I travelled to World Cups and European Championships as an observer and watched highlights reels of matches that were on the big screens — and we weren’t in any of them.

“They only showed the finals and big games. We needed to change that. We had high expectations but they didn’t match where we were, performance-wise. … We've come through a lot of big nights now, a lot of records have been broken, but we know we have to get this trophy to really feel the respect of the rest of the football world.”

England started slowly — very slowly — at Euro 2024, relying on big moments from big players to get them through to the semifinals. There, the team produced its best performance so far, but still needed a goal exactly on 90 minutes from Ollie Watkins to get past the Netherlands.

“It builds resilience and belief,” England captain Harry Kane said.

It’s an increasingly confident England heading into the final. And much of that comes from the coach.

“Tomorrow, I don’t have any fear what might happen,” Southgate said, “because I have been through everything. I want the players to feel that fearlessness.

“If we are not afraid to lose, it gives us a better chance of winning.”

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AP Euro 2024: https://apnews.com/hub/euro-2024