The Athletic

Hello, I'm Mark Chapman, welcome to the England show on The Athletic.

Coming up today, we will look ahead to England, Euro 2020,

last eight tie against Ukraine in Rome.

Flo Lloyd Hughes, the athletics Jack Pitt, Brooke and Adam Crafton are with us.

We'll talk to Jordan Campbell later on as well,

who was at Hamden to see Ukraine beat Sweden.

Off there, he's already had some interesting things

to say to me, Adam, about English arrogance, blaming you for English arrogance as well,

suggesting that you're making the suggestion that players could be rested for Ukraine.

Rotated is the word.

We'll come on to that in a little while.

Adam and Jack, though, have contributed on a massive read,

reflecting the night that everything came together.

And it did.

Everything came together, Jack.

It almost couldn't have gone better in the sense that Southgate could not have been more vindicated for the decisions that he's made, not just over the course of this tournament, but over the last few years. You know, the decision to change the formation mid-tournament, which is something which is incredibly rare for an England manager to do, and to do it after a successful group stage in which England took seven points and conceded no goals.

And picking what was, we have to be honest, a dreadfully unpopular team on Tuesday afternoon,

which no fan, literally no fans would have chosen.

And Southgate said afterwards, he would have been dead if it didn't work.

And so for it to, for the game to go almost precisely in keeping with what Southgate would

have expected and planned for, it's just like the biggest vindication I can, I can imagine for him.

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