Why England Should Walk Tall on Tottenham’s High-Energy Spine

England manager Gareth Southgate watches his players during a training session. (AFP)
England manager Gareth Southgate watches his players during a training session. (AFP)
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Why England Should Walk Tall on Tottenham’s High-Energy Spine

England manager Gareth Southgate watches his players during a training session. (AFP)
England manager Gareth Southgate watches his players during a training session. (AFP)

Few footballing figures have attracted such a solemnly tended mythology as Valeriy Lobanovskiy, the coach of Dynamo Kyiv and Ukraine in the late Soviet years. Wreathed in an ancient silence beneath his worker’s cap, Lobanovskiy was a monolithic presence during the TV coverage of the 1988 European Championship, appearing suddenly in Stalinist close-up, vast concrete jowls framing the screen, sphinx-like, eternal, as old as the steppes. He was, the internet reveals, only 49 at the time. But presumably being potent, eternal, all-seeing and so on takes it out of you.

Lobanovskiy is usually cast as the father of things. Father of analytics. Father of a data-driven total football. At times he has been portrayed as a piece of Soviet industrial-sporting machinery made flesh, players reduced to units of human value, blobs beeping away on the screen of his vast beige computer monitor.

But he was clearly very human too. Famously, Lobanovskiy’s Soviet Union team at those Euros was cut down from 40 players based on a series of tests, every movement tracked, rated and tessellated. At the end of which – and this is key – he basically picked all his own Dynamo Kyiv players. Numbers crunched, data unravelled, Lobanovskiy spent 36 hours in standby mode, diodes winking. Then whirred back into life and basically picked all his own Dynamo Kyiv players.

It worked too. The rest of the Soviet Union may have hated him for it but the Dynamo team he coached in his day job knew his system and knew each other. The obsession with team chemistry told him this was the best way to win. Eight of his club players ended up on the pitch in the final against Holland, a game Dynamo (feat special guests) were closer to winning than the 2-0 scoreline suggests.

This is probably the most extreme modern example of a successful one-club national team. But by design or chance it has become the trend. Portugal fielded 10 Sporting Lisbon youth team products at Euro 2016. Germany had seven Bayern Munich players at the last World Cup. The 2010 World Cup final was basically Ajax juniors v Barcelona juniors. Italy’s 2006 world champs had five Juventus players. Greece had five from Panathinaikos in 2004. It goes on. It makes sense. So why not in England?

This is in part just a matter of curiosity. England have stunk the place out at four successive tournaments. They were the most tedious guests at the last Euros but there is talent out there, so why not try something else? Why not pick a midfield and attack entirely from players under the age of 25 playing in the Champions League, who seem to be good enough for three of the best managers in the world?

That Tottenham spine, for example. Eric Dier, Harry Winks and Dele Alli started in midfield against Real Madrid on Wednesday night. They played a high-energy, high-pressing style, driven on by the startling spectacle of a febrile Wembley Stadium. Madrid may have looked old and muddled but they were also made to look that way.

And really: why wouldn’t you jump all over this, import it wholesale into the stodgiest England team in modern memory? What more convincing recommendations do we have lying around the place than outmaneuvering the European club champions? What kind of arrogance would it take from those picking an England team to assume they can do better? Mm. Yes, Mauricio. Not bad. We’ll keep your details on file. Now. Where were we? Oh yes. DNA. Gareth, fire up the Powerpoint.

This isn’t just a Spurs thing. It’s a Lobanovskiy-style note of pragmatism, of being able to put everything aside and accept the evidence of club football. The rest of the team picks itself in the same way. Raheem Sterling, Harry Kane and Marcus Rashford as a three-man attack, with Adam Lallana there for a note of rotation. Stick this ahead of Dier, Alli and Winks and England have access to a youthful, energetic starting front, all playing in more or less the same system, albeit not the ponderous possession-based England DNA-system. Imagine not wanting this to happen.

And yet, it isn’t going to happen. It doesn’t work like that. England, the England team, England-ness has always been a deeply solemn, conservative entity with its own structure of pecking orders and internal hierarchies. Senior players always cling on too long. Mediocre middleweights serve out their time.

It was obvious even before the last Euros that the Kane-Alli partnership was the best English element in the Premier League, that teasing it out and making it bloom was England’s best hope in attack or defense. But Roy Hodgson lost his nerve, distracted by personality, seniority and the need at all costs to shoehorn the ailing Wazza into the center of things. That club chemistry was junked. England oozed around France like a putrid, zombified carcass. This is how English football works, clogged by a pecking order of entitlement, even when the likely results are clear enough.

If the England age group successes tell us anything it is that the Premier League academies are capable of churning out talented, winning footballers, for whom the real challenge is simply getting a game on the other side, and that the wider public are hungry to see this happen.

With another tournament already looming England could do much worse than chucking out the chintz and kicking off with that youthful, club-grooved front six. In the process they might just take a note from Lobanovskiy, who worried on even more than England’s clipboard fondlers about method and cultures, but who in practice focused on the close-up details and picked a team that was already a team.

The Guardian Sport



Swiatek Crushes Anisimova 6-0 6-0 to Win Maiden Wimbledon Crown

Poland's Iga Swiatek celebrates with the trophy after beating Amanda Anisimova of the US to win the women's singles final at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Saturday, July 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Poland's Iga Swiatek celebrates with the trophy after beating Amanda Anisimova of the US to win the women's singles final at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Saturday, July 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
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Swiatek Crushes Anisimova 6-0 6-0 to Win Maiden Wimbledon Crown

Poland's Iga Swiatek celebrates with the trophy after beating Amanda Anisimova of the US to win the women's singles final at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Saturday, July 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Poland's Iga Swiatek celebrates with the trophy after beating Amanda Anisimova of the US to win the women's singles final at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Saturday, July 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Iga Swiatek took another stride towards tennis greatness by ruthlessly tearing apart American 13th seed Amanda Anisimova 6-0 6-0 and lifting her first Wimbledon trophy on Saturday.

The big occasion turned into a nightmare for Anisimova who became the first woman to lose a Wimbledon final by that painful scoreline since 1911 and the first to do so at any major since Steffi Graf routed Natasha Zvereva at the 1988 French Open.

Already a US Open champion and a four-times French Open winner, Swiatek's demolition job at the All England Club meant that she became the youngest woman since a 20-year-old Serena Williams in 2002 to lift major titles on all three surfaces.

Her superb display on the sun-drenched lawns of London also ensured that she emerged as the first player since Monica Seles in 1992 to win her first six major finals.

"It's something that is just surreal. I feel like tennis keeps surprising me, and I keep surprising myself," Swiatek told reporters after hoisting the gilded Venus Rosewater Dish.

"I'm really happy with the whole process, how it looked like from the first day we stepped on a grasscourt. Yeah, I feel like we did everything for it to go in that direction without expecting it, just working really hard.

"It means a lot, and it gives me a lot of experience. Yeah, I don't even know. I'm just happy."

Swiatek's triumph ended a barren 13-month run for the Polish 24-year-old, who served a short suspension late last year after an inadvertent doping violation linked to contaminated sleep medication melatonin.

"I want to thank my coach (Wim Fissette). With the ups and downs now, we showed everybody it's working," Swiatek added.

SCORCHING START

On another warm afternoon on Centre Court, Swiatek got off to a scorching start by breaking a nervous Anisimova three times en route to dishing out the first bagel, prompting some spectators to get behind the shell-shocked American.

A frustrated Anisimova shrieked and desperately looked to her team in the stands for any kind of guidance after conceding yet another break point early in the second set and it was not long before her machine-like opponent pulled away further, Reuters reported.

Anisimova continued to disappointingly crack under pressure, before Swiatek completed the brutal mauling in 57 minutes with a backhand winner on her second match point to become the first Wimbledon champion from Poland.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk celebrated with a picture of himself watching a post-match interview while holding a bowl of pasta and strawberries, Swiatek's cheat meal at Wimbledon, while President Andrzej Duda was effusive in his praise.

"Iga! Today, on the grasscourts of Wimbledon, you wrote history - not only for Polish sport, but also for Polish pride. On behalf of the Republic of Poland - thank you," Duda wrote.

Victory took Swiatek to 100 wins from 120 matches at the majors, making her the quickest to get to there since Williams in 2004, and denied Anisimova the chance to become the first American to win the title since her compatriot in 2016.

Swiatek jumped for joy on court before running towards her team in the stands to celebrate her triumph. The Friends fan was equally delighted to receive a congratulatory hug from American actress Courteney Cox, who was among the spectators.

All this while, Anisimova was left to wonder what could have been as she sat in her seat, before the tears began to flow during her on-court interview.

Few would have envisioned the American to hit the heights she did in the last fortnight after she fell outside the top 400 following her mental health break two years ago.

"I didn't have enough today," said Anisimova, who began the tournament with a 6-0 6-0 win over Yulia Putintseva but admitted to running out of gas in the final.

"I'm going to keep putting in the work, and I always believe in myself. I hope to be back again one day."

It was bitter disappointment for US fans hoping for an "American Slam" this year after Madison Keys won the Australian Open at the start of the year and Coco Gauff triumphed at the French Open last month.