Can England win Euro 2020?

England national football team exceed expectations at the World Cup this year. People thought that they would struggle to get out of their group and never reach as far as the semi-final. Gareth Southgate changed up the formation to a 3-1-4-2 which worked very well for the team. They were solid defensively and were excellent at set pieces. As a matter of fact, the team scored 9 out of their 12 goals at the World Cup from set pieces. Harry Kane, the Golden Boot winner at the World Cup scored three of his six goals from penalties, two from corner kicks, and his only goal from open play was a deflection. This shows how clinical England were from set pieces.

During the World Cup, even though England went on the run to the semi-finals there was still something missing in their midfield. There was no creative spark, no De Bruyne or Silva type player to unlock that magic pass. Dele Alli was carrying an injury and was not playing at top form. Harry Kane also seemed to be tired after the group stages and only scored one penalty in the round of 16 which was his last goal of the tournament.

With all that being said, the team is still a very young squad. Gareth Southgate named the youngest squad out of the 32 teams that qualified for the world cup. Additionally, they were also the team with the least caps on average per player at the tournament. This shows that it was a very young and inexperienced team. For such a youthful team it is even more impressive that they were able to go so far in the competition.

Since the World Cup England have played 4 matches. The first two matches were not very convincing. First up England played Spain in the Uefa Nations League at home in at home. They lost the match 1-2. Three days later they played Switzerland at home and narrowly won 1-0, however, were not convincing. In the last week during the October international break, England had two Uefa Nations League matches. The first against Croatia, which was a repeat of the World Cup semi-final ended 0-0 and England missed some good chances to win the game. The second game against Spain is when England really showed what they are capable of. They had a blistering first half and were 0-3 up at half time. The second half England sat off a little and Spain scored two goals, however the England were still victorious by a 2-3 score line.

Euro 2020 is still two years away. However, if this young team continues to develop in the way that it is, and Gareth Southgate continues to bring in new young talents then there is no reason to believe that the team should not be aiming to win Euro 2020.