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Times
26 minutes ago
- Times
What if the England DNA is just never giving up?
In 2014 the FA introduced a set of principles that aimed to define the core characteristics of the England teams and profile the future players who would people them, calling it the 'England DNA'. The decade since then has brought the emergence of a new, technically adept cohort of male and female players. More importantly, both the England men's and women's teams have taken a significant step forward in terms of tournament performance, reaching four finals between them — with a fifth to come on Sunday — of which one was unforgettably won by the Lionesses at Wembley in 2022. These are times that England fans feel grateful to be living through. If you were going to be ultra-critical, though, you'd focus on precisely that idea of England DNA: that shared double-thread which intertwines men's and women's teams and tells us everything we need to know about what an England team looks like, how they play, what their idea of football is. You could probably count on one hand the number of tournament games, even in this era of unprecedented success, where either team has convincingly demonstrated an identity, a way of playing, with the same force or confidence with which Spain — England's biggest rival as the great dual power of the present era — enact their brand of football. Tuesday night's game against Italy was a case in point. There were mitigating circumstances for the Lionesses' rather disjointed and reactive performances against France and Sweden. France was their first tournament game without Millie Bright, Mary Earps and Fran Kirby, with new players bedding in, and Sweden pressed England hard and scored in the second minute: it's a pretty hard ask to serenely impose your style of football in those circumstances. But against Italy, you might have expected more from Sarina Wiegman 's team. They were playing opponents with less quality and far less experience at this level, who for the first half an hour were just trying to feel their way into the occasion. This was exactly the sort of situation where you would expect the superior team, the one playing their fifth straight semi-final, to set the tone and tempo of the match, play their natural game, give a confident exhibition of the way they play. England offered very little of that. Watching them, I had the familiar feeling of finding it hard to discern what they were actually trying to do, the collective joined-up idea of how they intended to create, control and defend. The flip side, of course, is that there was so much to admire in the way England came back. This is a team who never know they're beaten. Once again, in adversity, we saw the best of them. For character, mentality and resilience, England's performance could not be faulted, but it's also worth putting a bit of emphasis on their composure and execution. For the equaliser, Lauren Hemp delivered a superb whipped-in cross to the near post, and Michelle Agyemang finished brilliantly, taking a perfect first touch and then drilling the shot low and hard through the legs of Elena Linari and Laura Giuliani. Given the desperation of the situation, those were moments of exceptional quality. But to be honest, I'm not sure we expected anything less. These Lionesses have thoroughly earned our confidence in their capacity to keep going until the very last second and more often than not, somehow, just find a way. We've seen them do it many times before, after all. Not only could they easily have lost to Sweden in Zurich, they gritted their way past Nigeria and Colombia at the last World Cup, and scored an 84th-minute equaliser against Spain en route to the trophy in 2022. To listen to the players after the Italy game, speaking about the confidence they felt that they could do it again, even as the clock ticked past 95 minutes, was to understand that once a team have done this often enough, that belief, that collective memory, compounds so powerfully that it becomes almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. 'Whilst there are seconds on the clock,' Leah Williamson said, 'it's less 'if' and more 'how'.' I don't think it's mere laziness to draw the comparison with the England men's team: the parallels are obvious. At Euro 2024 in particular, Gareth Southgate's team were often dreadfully inert and lacking in ideas when given the blank slate of a goalless scoreboard and an opponent they were expected to beat: think of the match against Slovenia and the start of the matches against Slovakia and Switzerland. They were not good at dictating games. But give them a desperate situation to react to, and the true quality of the team revealed itself. When Dan Ashworth — then the FA's director of elite development, but now its chief football officer — came up with the England DNA, it was with a vision of formulating a distinct play style in mind. 'As a football nation we have long been characterised by our passion, fighting spirit and effort,' he said. 'Although there are aspects of these characteristics we wish to retain, we do not wish to be solely defined by them.' Bronze, right, and Mead recover in the cryotherapy chamber after a second consecutive game that went to extra time… LIONESSES But where Ashworth had hoped a higher English style would articulate itself, there remains a kind of blank space, one the Lionesses players at this tournament have filled with their evocation of 'proper England': meaning, pretty much, playing with passion, fighting spirit and effort. And yet, there are a few common things which run through the recent exploits of the two national teams. If you had to sum them up, you would probably say: winning duels. Maximising set pieces. Working until the absolute last second and leaving nothing out on the pitch. And pinning the performance on the skill, swagger and determination of individuals rather than an orchestrated tactical masterplan. The question is: is this enough? Does all this constitute an identity in its own right, or is it a poor substitute for one, a scant, bare-minimum ethos which exists in the vacuum where England's answer to Spain's possession-based, positional style ought to be? It's easy to lean towards the latter — and it will be especially so if Sunday brings the spectacle of Spain beating England in a major final for a third year in a row. But when I spoke to the Euro '96 champion Marco Bode last year about Germany's golden era from the 1970s to the mid-Nineties, he advanced the view that the success of those Germany teams was built on work rate, solid temperament and above all, the ability to respond to difficult moments and solve problems. It strikes me that those aren't so different from the virtues which define the England teams now. The reality is there is no English equivalent of Italy's catenaccio, Germany's gegenpressing, Spain's juego de posición, the Cruyff school of the Netherlands. The attempt to define and invent one was nobly intentioned and may bear fruit one day, but right now still feels like a work in progress. And if there's one cardinal lesson which international football teaches us, it's that you can't wish into existence what you don't have; you can only make the best of what you do. England v Spain
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Chris Gotterup doesn't know about ‘heaters,' even if he's on one
July 24 - The past two weeks for Chris Gotterup have been nothing short of incredible. And everyone wants to know why. After winning the Genesis Scottish Open and following that up with a third-place finish at The Open, Gotterup -- set to compete at the 3M Open in Blahine, Minn. this weekend -- doesn't have much of an explanation. "I wish I knew what it was," Gotterup said. "I feel like I've been in a good rhythm and flow over the last couple months. "I was talking to my team the last two months about like, all right, I feel like I've got to take the next step here at some point. I didn't know when it was going to happen, if it was going to happen, but I feel like the Scottish was a big step in the right direction, and then to follow it up ... "Someone asked me last week, media, they were like, have you ever like been on a heater? I was like, I don't think so. Like when I won, I missed the cut the week after. I feel like I've gotten better at just knowing my body and how to react after like, you know, important weeks like that. And yeah, I'm going to try to ride it out as long as I can." To his point, Gotterup's strong play extends back five tournaments now, as he carded three top-30 finishes before his impressive 1-3 the last two weeks. That series of results has elevated him to No. 23 in the official FedEx standings. Understandably, his goals have shifted upward, as he now eyes a top-30 finish and a trip to East Lake for the Tour Championship in late August. "I feel like I have a different set of circumstances in front of me," he said. "I would like to get to East Lake and then obviously see what happens from there. Yeah, I feel like I'm playing with house money at the moment, especially with what's happened. I'm excited for the rest of the season." Gotterup knows the best way to get there is to continue to play well. That might be a tougher assignment at the 3M, where he finished in a tie for 59th a year ago. In his debut at the event in 2022, he finished in a tie for 31st. Fortunately, his confidence right now couldn't be higher. "At The Open, I felt like, all right, I've done this, I've hit some quality shots under the gun. I think it definitely carried over, and I don't see why that won't carry over into the future. It just gave me a bit more confidence knowing that, one, when it's show time, I have the ability to step up and hit the shots." --Field Level Media
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Acting veteran Tony Finau looking for better performances on the course
July 24 - When Tony Finau was asked to play himself in the upcoming film "Happy Gilmore 2," the PGA veteran didn't have to think long about saying yes. "I had never been a part of anything like that," Finau said. "My short cameo in 'Happy Gilmore 2' was fun to be a part of, fun to shoot with Adam Sandler. To be asked to even do it was really an honor, being a huge 'Happy Gilmore' fan growing up." But despite the thrill of getting to take part in something new by starring in a Hollywood movie set to debut this weekend, Finau admitted to reporters Wednesday in advance of the 3M Open - also occurring this weekend -- that he is looking for something more familiar: a good feeling about his play on the golf course. "I just know this one hasn't felt like a successful season to me. I haven't played my best golf," Finau said. "I feel like when I've played golf, when I've played well, I haven't been able to finish off tournaments. So, I just don't feel like I've gotten a lot out of my game this year. "I think obviously wins are the easiest way to look back and say, 'all right, this was a successful season,' but I've had a lot of seasons that I finished and I thought even though I didn't win, it was a very successful season. I guess I'm more of a feel guy, at the end of the year I kind of just know if I had a season that was worth remembering or forgetting." The numbers back those feelings up. Finau, who is tied with Xander Schauffele as the active leaders with the most consecutive TOUR Championship berths (eight and counting), is finding that streak to be in jeopardy this season. He is currently just 59th in the FedExCup standings, with no wins under his belt for the second straight year after a run of four championships over the previous two-year period. Finau knows some good golf in the short term can net him a Top 50 finish to lock him in for next year's signature events and inch him closer to a potential trip to East Lake for the TOUR Championship late next month. "It's definitely in the back of my mind because I know how important that top-50 number is, has become on the PGA TOUR. So it's definitely something in the back of my mind, but that's really where it is, it's back. At the forefront of my mind this week is playing good golf and that's in my experience, you know, if you play good golf it always -- things always take care of themselves." He opened strong at The Open last week with two rounds under par before falling out of contention with two pedestrian follow-up rounds. He's taking a positive mindset from that experience. That might well be justified. Finau has played all six editions of the 3M Open and never finished worse than T28. "I'm optimistic about the week. I had a nice start to the week last week at The Open, didn't have the weekend that I was hoping for. A lot of positives to build from and build on from last week and looking forward to just progressing my way into this weekend." --Field Level Media
