Stars are aligned for England: Neil Humphreys
No weaknesses and a kind draw make it possible for Three Lions to win Euro 2020
The Three Lions are doing it all wrong. This isn't the way. The dream should be over.
Normally, the weeping montages are being cued now, the ones filled with haunted footballers, crying kids and outraged headlines.
This isn't England. This is an alternate reality with confident performers swaggering into the semi-finals, following a manager's clear and smart plan.
The Three Lions can actually win Euro 2020. Seriously. No jokes. No clumsy attempts at eye-rolling irony, Gareth Southgate's collective enterprise is promising to lift something other than broken bodies after another failed penalty shoot-out.
And this isn't a belated attempt to hop aboard a bandwagon either. Anyone who has followed England for the last 20 years - or followed this column for the last 20 years - will know that weary cynicism comes easier than optimism.
Too many overhyped England circuses and just too much insufferable jingoism - often dipped in post-imperial sentiment - replaced hope with antipathy.
It started with a loss in Lisbon. At Euro 2004, the Golden Generation couldn't beat Portugal on penalties. But the Estadio da Luz was still an electric atmosphere, buoyed by the belief that things would only get better.
They didn't.
The malaise in Manaus was far worse. Watching the hopeless Three Lions wilt in the Brazilian heat against Italy in 2014 felt like the real nadir.
It wasn't.
That came two years later, inside a Paris newsroom, as European journalists applauded England's nightmare exit against Iceland at Euro 2016, celebrating the humiliating end of England's hubris.
For so long, the Three Lions' default position was defeatism.
HOPES
Not any more. Hopes must be aligned to a reality so optimistic, it's disconcerting.
Southgate's high-flying Lions have no real weaknesses. That's not hyperbole either, just a fair assessment of England's 4-0 quarter-final win against Ukraine yesterday morning (Singapore time). It was so easy.
Again, this is tough to compute. England players rarely do easy. They usually do "difficult", served up on a bed of rusty nails with lashings of self-flagellation.
And yet, Southgate turned a squeaky bum test into an exhibition, from a hairy encounter into the Harlem Globetrotters in just four goals.
England's models of consistency were all present and correct.
Jordan Pickford continues to look less and less like the erratic Jordan Pickford at Everton and his centre-backs remain faultless.
With every effortless surge and assist, Luke Shaw makes Jose Mourinho eat those vindictive words, helping Raheem Sterling to do likewise among booing Neanderthals.
Kalvin Phillips improves with every game and Declan Rice adds £5 million (S$9.3m) to his eventual sale price with each interception. Even Jadon Sancho is settling in nicely.
And then, there's Harry Kane, the complex embodiment of a nation's schizophrenia. Before the tournament, he was the Three Lions' best player. By the second game, he was their worst player.
His exasperating dip in form felt like a security blanket for the eternally pessimistic. At least, the skipper was still rubbish, offering a semblance of the old, familiar world.
As long as he was hopeless, despair was only a fluffed chance away.
But he's gone through a mad metamorphosis, too. Only a remarkable fingertip save denied him a spectacular hat-trick. He looks like Tottenham Hotspur's Harry Kane again.
If that guy shows up against the Danes, feasting on Shaw's deliveries rather than begging for scraps outside the box, then Southgate's tailor can put the finishing touches on his suit for the final.
Southgate is the finishing touch, of course. A terrific man-manager and an even better man, he's not only proving to be the best coach for the job, but also the best spokesman for these troubled, binary times.
He's excelling beyond the pitch. He's making England likeable again. The red-faced, veiny, bilious aspects of the Three Lions' inglorious past have given way to an empathetic, unifying and inclusive camp.
Even the karmic gods approve, presenting Southgate and his likeable lads with the easier path to a Wembley final.
Caveats remain, of course. The Danes are still the feel-good story of Euro 2020. Christian Eriksen's collapse and miraculous recovery has been emulated - with his full endorsement - by grateful teammates.
And the Italians are always going to be, well, the Italians.
But Denmark, Italy and Spain have conceded goals. All three have either ageing or inexperienced defenders.
England have no such problems. Their players are scaling a peak together. Their bench is unrivalled.
For the first time, there really is nothing to fear.
In a way, the dream is almost over. Winning Euro 2020 should now become a reality.
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