England 5-0 Republic of Ireland (Kane 53′ pen, Gordon 55′, Gallagher 58′, Bowen 75′, Harwood-Bellis 79′ | Scales 51′ red card)
WEMBLEY — England top Nations League Group B2! Fifty-eight years of hurt finally ended! Promoted back to the big time!
Knighthoods will surely follow, and a open-top bus parade through the capital, and possibly an extra Bank Holiday to allow everyone to celebrate this most monumental of occasions.
Everyone will forever own that where-were-you? moment when England were promoted to the Nations League A groups.
In reality, these stagnating international breaks are dying a slow death, and not even two wins and eight goals, against Greece and the Republic of Ireland, could save this one.
A team pieced together out of the fragmented leftovers of a stream of big-name withdrawals will probably never play together again once Lee Carsley has cleared his desk.
Noni Madueke, Conor Gallagher and Curtis Jones were some of the brighter notes in two fixtures Thomas Tuchel, the impending England manager, didn’t consider important enough, or of any tangible consequence to his plans to win the 2026 World Cup, to attend in person.
On Sunday night Jarrod Bowen, Anthony Gordon, Gallagher and Taylor Harwood-Bellis scored their first England goals.
Will any of it matter to Tuchel? Not likely. His work will start on 1 January preparing for England’s first World Cup qualifier in March, and all those who pulled out to rest up for the busy upcoming festive period of club football were well aware how little this meant.
On the night, England’s Nations League fate hung on a knife edge – needing to better the result of Greece to top the group and avoid second-place and an awkward Nations League play-off in March.
The atmosphere was such in the stadium that Ireland fans asked if Wembley was a library in the first half. People in the stands yawned. Harry Kane walked around as though he had chewing gum stuck to the bottom of both boots.
Heading into the second half it was even more tense – the England and Greece games goalless. Still, hardly any fans rushed back for it.
Many had not even made it back to seats by the time England scored the opening goal, five minutes in. Kane’s wonderful low diagonal through pass had found Jude Bellingham before he side-stepped Liam Scales, drawing a foul to win a penalty and earn the Ireland defender a second yellow card.
Kane scored the penalty – his third goal in five games perhaps papering over cracks of the increasing swathes of his games when his ineffectuality hampers the whole system.
A player down, the rigid structure and tight organisation that underpinned Ireland’s efforts to frustrate England crumbled. And within 10 minutes England were three ahead, Gordon tucking in a volley when a skewed Ireland clearance fell to him and Gallagher poking in at the back post from a corner.
Loads of fans had already left by the time England made three substitutions and Bowen scored with his first touch from a well-worked routine, 15 minutes from the end. Even more when Bellingham crossed and Harwood-Bellis, on for his debut, directed a thumping header past Caoimhin Kelleher.
Those trains, carparks and roads are rammed to near standstill after matches, so who can blame them for getting a head start to beat the crowds?
You can point to Wembley Stadium being full for these matches as evidence of demand, forgetting that for the two weeks 20 Premier League stadiums are shut down.
Or that each month from the start of the season the moans increase in intensity that the thrills and soap-opera entertainment of the Premier League and Champions League are put on hold for two whole weeks to watch a group of players who spend months and years learning to play with club team-mates expected to perform on the pitch after a handful of training sessions and a few bonding sessions at St George’s Park with each other.
International football can still have its place around the pinnacle of the game without this. There can still be rabid appetite for World Cups and European Championships without having to shoehorn these breaks in for the sake of it, because that’s what has always been and the misguided notion that international football cannot possibly cede ground in the battle for football’s schedule.