The day after Monday’s chaotic draw with Germany marked the sixth anniversary of Gareth Southgate’s reign as England manager.
There weren’t too many congratulations being handed out as the country came to terms with a baffling result from a schizophrenic performance.
The mood has not changed that this looming World Cup is the final test for Southgate’s ability to win a major international trophy. There are some who believe we are already in the end game, which is why it is interesting and timely to compare his progress, results and future prospects to those of England’s most recent opponents.
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Let’s face it, we love measuring ourselves up against the Germans. The multiple similarities between our two nations drive a rivalry that is manifested best through football - the only sport in which we directly compete. The next instalment will be in November at the World Cup in Qatar.
Germany’s most recent manager was Joachim Low who handed over the reins to assistant Hansi Flick just last year.
Southgate can comfortably be compared to a man regarded as one of his country’s finest managers, who was asked to overhaul his national team and usher in a new era.
It took Joachim Low eight years to win a trophy - the 2014 World Cup. Southgate still has two years’ grace by that token.
Until that golden moment in Brazil, Low showed some progression but no miracles. Third place at the previous World Cup in South Africa, matching that of the deflating experience of ‘06 on home soil. Runners-up at Euro 2008 was positive but it would have been hard to improve on the group stage exit four years earlier.
Southgate has a World Cup semi final and a European Championship final to his credit, having inherited a squad in freefall from the disaster of Euro 2016 and that infamous defeat by Iceland. Considering where this current squad has come from and England’s failure to win anything since 1966 makes for favourable reading.
The pressure is on now to improve on the fourth place in Russia four years ago. That still leaves three places that will continue the upward curve.
No coach wants to head into a major competition on a run of six games without a win but tournaments have a habit of making - and breaking - players.
Low was highly regarded for bringing through exciting young players and an attacking style of play that made Germany good to watch.
At his first World Cup in 2010, amid the din of the now despised vuvuzela horns, Low could only match the third place finish of his predecessor Jurgen Klinsmann four years prior. But in Thomas Muller there emerged a man who would go on to become a mainstay of the next generation of German football and the bedrock for future success.
At the 2010 World Cup, midfielder Muller won the Golden Boot and Best Young Player award even though Germany didn’t win. But the engine room of the Bayern Munich team became the linchpin around which everything revolved for the next ten years for ‘die Mannschaft’.
By the time Low and his players touched down in Brazil four years later, Muller was established as the player all Germany looked to. He scored five goals and was a major part in the fifth successful World Cup campaign. He was the face of German football as the man who covered the hard yards and drove his team-mates relentlessly.
In Jude Bellingham, Southgate may just have a Muller in the making. The young Borussia Dortmund midfielder is tall and slim, yet deceptively powerful. Mature at 19, he is already earning plaudits from international team-mate and midfield partner Declan Rice, himself a Premier League captain, for the way he conducts himself on the pitch.
Teenager Bellingham emerged from the latest unflattering run of England games with a glowing report. Willing to defend, tackle and attack, he has presence and he may have arrived at just the right time to save Southgate’s neck.
Muller broke into the Germany team in 2009, with German football fans desperate for a new hero to restore pride in their team and revive the reputation of their national team manager. Southgate is in the same boat right now so cannot ignore this gift.
England’s inferiority complex is what compels us to compare ourselves to the Germans so often. Our nation needs to look at how patient the Deutscher Fussball Bund were with Low before demanding Southgate be sacked because of a few dodgy results.
We all need to hope that Birmingham teenager Bellingham can emulate the illustrious career of Muller and make the next two years momentous in the history of the England team.
