Yep. I didn't say it wasn't a chance worth taking, I said it was a gamble...Southgate's gamble. The stakes are either he gets to the Sfs and is lauded or or he doesn't and should lose his job for pulling a stunt off like last night's when he most definitely sent a team out with the instruction to fail.
Yes davek, Southgate has really gone up in my estimation for taking what is still a gamble, even if it's very much a strategically justified one and one he really had to take imo.
Lots of England managers have failed before we know that, a few have reached the quarters or better but only a very select few the semis or better, in fact only Ramsey and Robson.
Southgate despite having a young side, one which is likely to be far better in future tournaments, in two and four years time, has the chance to take this side beyond any realistic pre-tournament expectations.
The side has obvious defensive frailties and lacks an effective central playmaker normally so needed in tournament football, an English one doesn't exist atm and Gareth can't simply magic one up, he's not a club manager and he can't just buy one.
Suddenly, and perhaps quite unexpectedly, a freak of the draw has offered this side, lacking in so many ways, a unique opportunity to reach a stage way beyond its capabilities would normally merit. This is possibly a once in a lifetime and life changing opportunity that could put Southgate's name in the same bracket as Bobby Robson.
He could have tried to take the nice easy safe option and aimed to put a ceiling, an upper limit on England's best possible outcome, one of beating Japan even if probably exposed by Brazil. He could have played more or less his strongest team and tried to beat a second string Belgium (not third they weren't allowed a squad of 50), and gone on to maybe beat Japan, not a certainty either.
He has instead thought strategically, recognised the opportunity such a massively lopsided draw has given him, it's so stark, it's absolutely unique, it's never broken this way before, it's just never ever happened before.
He's risking the gleeful 'told you so's' of all the hindsight merchants, all the press who win both ways and the usual friendly souls who always predict or wish the worst possible catastrophe on any England manager, the chippy and those Scots who support anyone England play. To be such a one isn't a good look.
He had to go for it.
