England Are Looking Forward at What Could Possibly Be

How was it for you? In Cambridge Heath, the bar, packed and already that rare kind of humid which pushes you beyond the point of sweating, was overcome with the shuddering relief of a climax 12 years – or maybe even an eternity – in the making.

That England's first ever victory in a World Cup penalty shoot-out – secured after that first, nerve-tightening period of extra time which made your lungs as dry as the moon and victory seem as distant – came along at just the right moment for this young team is undeniable. That they deserved it is beyond question. Sides of old would have wilted here, in what was essentially an away atmosphere on the steep banks of Moscow's Spartak Stadium. What this England did was not wilt. And that turned out to be enough.

Redemption for the coach Gareth Southgate felt like the easy angle on this, the one that will be picked up and fed off by those who've been scarred by too many tournament summers when England flags flying from estate cars, supermarket awnings, semi-detached plots and council blocks have overstayed their welcome. English defeat in this kind of head-to-head has often felt as invariable and grim a summer event as Flying Ant Day or a death at the National, and yet here there was something else for and by the country’s new footballing generation, not a surrender, not a descent, no emblems left flying out of sheer habit and the pain of putting tired dreams to bed. If this England side felt like it needed a grand narrative thrust to tie it all together, some sense of shared cultural mission or basic logical destiny, then this was the perfect means of delivery.

What it garnered was a result that has England not looking back at what has gone before, but forward at what could possibly be – no matter the extent of it. It would be criminal now for the English tabloid press – so often at odds with what feels necessary and instinctive and optimistic for the football that is loved in this country as it is nowhere else on Earth – to turn on this side, to paint any potential quarter-final exit as a failure. England should, on paper, beat Sweden; of that there is no doubt. But England should, on paper, have been treated far better than they have done not just in the build-up to this tournament, but in so many before. There is a universe in which England lose to Sweden and yet the country’s national newspapers retain the grace to say it remains overall a job well done, something in a staid and stymied land that at least resembles progress.

You’d hope this universe finds the right hacks if and when Jordan Pickford fails to pull off saves like the incomprehensible one he made just before Yerry Mina put Colombia ahead; if John Stones plays England into trouble rather than playing himself into captaincy contention; if Fabian Delph returns from the birth of his son to boos; if Jordan Henderson has the misfortune of missing again. If that is a slim hope, then it's the same kind of hope that England have of reaching this year's World Cup final. And that is more hope than anyone would have given them – given us – at the outset.

In those initial moments of relief and euphoria back in Cambridge Heath, the bar was busy being soaked, its old, close wooden ceilings watered, its expectation of schadenfreude and disappointment dispelled. The sober Turkish landlord seemed just as confused as everyone else by England's ability to triumph from 12 yards – one for every year since the last shoot-out defeat – closing the bar while scaling it simultaneously to uncork two, three, four bottles of Sunday morning champagne over a crowd of sweating, singing male and female torsos.

I’d wager, by that stage, things for you were an Impressionist blur. There was something hallucinogenic about England's travails in that first period of extra time, as if their ten outfield men were labouring beneath the heat of some oppressive, collapsing star, a slither of national history turning the match into a version of Melancholia set in Moscow and retooled to star Eric Dier rather than Kirsten Dunst.

But it was all alright, because somehow Jordan Pickford saw the sun crashing to Earth, caught it in his gloves and drop-kicked it back into outer space. The sight of Englishmen running overjoyed to their keeper by the corner flag rather than dropping inconsolably to the turf felt perverse, something that shouldn’t be witnessed let alone enjoyed, deliriously, in public. But then this seems to be what happens at this World Cup; a month-long inversion of the game’s natural laws, the in-built biases, handicaps and phobias that so many of us, wedded to the club game’s stratified elite levels, have come to perceive as certainties.

There is no telling where England go from here. With only eight matches left of a 64-game tournament, we still, really, ludicrously, don’t even know how good they are. But what we can be sure of at least is that there should be no grand disgrace, no market town effigy or pub bore punchbag for people to fall back on, to kick out at in that dull and comforting English tournament summer way. This team has already done enough. Whatever happens next is the adventure. If you still hate yourself and the world after this World Cup, it’s most likely on you and you alone – this England, even with a light breeze rather than a gale in their sails, already deserve to avoid the slings and arrows, the usual dumb outrage at misfortune.

@hydallcodeen

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