England Euro 2024 LIVE: Latest news as Gareth Southgate plans major tactical switch v Switzerland
Follow all the latest news and updates after Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane spared England’s blushes in the last-16 win over Slovakia
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Only eight nations remain at Euro 2024 and, somehow, England are still one of them.
A date with Switzerland awaits Gareth Southgate’s side now after struggling through the group stage and mounting the very latest of late escapes in the last-16 against Slovakia, with an injury-time equaliser sending the tie to extra-time, where a goal from Harry Kane sealed their progress.
Jude Bellingham scored the spectacular 96th-minute strike to keep England in the game - and the tourmament - but ensuing celebrations left some offended. “An inside joke gesture towards some close friends who were at the game. Nothing but respect for how that Slovakia team played tonight,” he suggested - but that didn’t stop Uefa opening an investigation over potential indecent conduct, which could yet see him face a ban.
There remains much for Southgate to solve though, including a defensive riddle with Kieran Trippier a doubt and Marc Guehi suspended - and the rest of the team not playing well either.
Follow all the latest news updates and reaction ahead of England’s last-eight fixture below.
England updates and Euro 2024 latest news
Sometimes in football, the great thinkers are not the great winners. They can show everyone else their ideas, but not their medals. It is why they attract disciples but also dissenters. Ralf Rangnick is the godfather of gegenpressing, but Jurgen Klopp has borrowed from his methods and won the Champions League, league titles in two countries and a host of cups. Some four decades into his managerial career, Rangnick has won the Intertoto Cup, the German Cup, the German second division and the German third tier.
There are managers with bigger trophy cabinets and far less influence. Rangnick’s reputation instead is as a Mitteleuropean Marcelo Bielsa: a pioneer, an evangelist, a man who altered the game but didn’t win the defining matches. For Rangnick, Euro 2024 had promised the belated reward, the historic achievement, the undeniable proof of excellence. He had started to admit that, yes, Austria could win it.
Until they were ejected from it.
Ralf Rangnick is always the pioneer, never the winner – but he made Euro 2024 better
Darlings of the group stage, Austria, crashed out to Turkey in the last 16 but that was oddly fitting for manager Rangnick, the perennial architect-but-not-champion
England news and latest Euro 2024 updates
Ezri Konsa will be hoping to get the nod from Gareth Southgate with Marc Guehi suspended for the quarter-final against Switzerland - but his only minutes so far have come at left-back.
England train ahead of Switzerland test in Euro 2024 quarter-finals
Jude Bellingham delivered salvation but he can’t hide England’s huge flaws
Gareth Southgate, duly, still believed. As the clock ticked into the 94th minute, and England looked like they were still going, the manager evidently wasn’t thinking about what he was going to say. He was still thinking about how they could rescue it, what could be done.
“I had belief right the way through that we’d get the goal. I didn’t think it would be as late as it was. I wasn’t ready to go home yet and clearly the players felt the same way.”
One player certainly wasn’t, and there is an argument he thinks in a different way than any previous England player. Jude Bellingham has now given the national team a moment they’ve never had. There’s never been salvation like this.
There’s never been a last-minute knock-out goal - or later - to actually keep England in a tournament. The closest was Gary Lineker’s penalty against Cameroon in the 1990 World Cup quarter-final, but that was in the 83rd minute. It wasn’t as desperately necessary as this.
Jude Bellingham delivered salvation but he can’t hide England’s huge flaws
Jude Bellingham delivered something that was scarcely believable but his performance was not flawless
How Southgate hopes the lessons of 1966 can inspire success at Euro 2024
t was 30 years of hurt when Gareth Southgate stepped up and missed a penalty and it was about to become at least 60 until Jude Bellingham attempted an overhead kick. Southgate makes no secret of his ambitions to emulate Sir Alf Ramsey, to double the number of trophy-winning managers in England’s history. He looks to the past to provide inspiration and lessons alike. If 1966 has become a profitable nostalgia industry, it is so long ago that many of the England players’ parents were not born. They could be forgiven for not knowing all the details.
At St George’s Park, before England ventured to Germany, Southgate turned back time. “We showed the players a presentation about 1966 and how Geoff Hurst hadn’t played until the quarter-final.” Hurst ended up the hat-trick hero in the final and if that scarcely needs explaining, some of Southgate’s charges may not know that a man who achieved immortality had entered the 1966 World Cup with a lone international goal to his name.
Plans can change en route, fringe figures can assume central roles. The path to glory is not always smooth, even if England contrived to make it look remarkably bumpy as they squeezed past Slovakia.
How Southgate hopes the lessons of 1966 can inspire success at Euro 2024
As the Three Lions scrape through to the quarter-finals, Gareth Southgate is drawing on history to keep his whole squad of players hungry, writes Richard Jolly
Gareth Southgate says England have found their Paul Gascoigne moment at Euro 2024
Gareth Southgate believes Jude Bellingham’s goal against Slovakia can be a spark for England’s tournament, like Paul Gascoigne’s goal against Scotland at Euro 96, as he made a point of stating the legend of that tournament and the 1990 World Cup has made people forget performances were initially poor.
While Southgate accepted that his team have “got to be better”, he feels that the 95th-minute equaliser to eventually eliminate Slovakia showed a “togetherness” and “spirit” essential to any tournament. The manager also believes it will “give the whole group belief”, just like Gascoigne in 1996. Southgate feels that will be essential against an “excellent” Switzerland team in the Euro 2024 quarter-final.
“Well, there’s no question it will give the whole group belief,” he said. “The boys that came on and contributed that had a big impact on what we were doing: the togetherness and the spirit that you need.
Gareth Southgate says England have found their Paul Gascoigne moment at Euro 2024
The manager suggested that fans often forget how poor England were en route to semi-finals at the 1990 World Cup and Euro 96
Jude Bellingham faces possible ban over gesture to crowd during England’s Euro 2024 win
Jude Bellingham faces a possible ban at Euro 2024 after Uefa opened an investigation into a gesture he made while celebrating the spectacular overhead kick scored against Slovakia in their last-16 tie on Sunday.
Bellingham equalised in the 96th minute to save England from a humiliating defeat, and they eventually prevailed in extra time to book a quarter-final with Switzerland.
In the aftermath of his goal, Bellingham was seen shouting “Who else?!” as he ran over to England fans after scoring. Video showed the Real Madrid forward then kiss his hand and grab his crotch in a gesture which appeared to be directed towards the side of the pitch.
Amid accusations that he had disrespected the Slovakian bench or their supporters, Bellingham explained his actions on social media, tweeting: “An inside joke gesture towards some close friends who were at the game. Nothing but respect for how that Slovakia team played tonight.”
Jude Bellingham faces possible ban over gesture to crowd in England’s Euro 2024 win
Bellingham has dismissed the idea that he disrespected Slovakia fans during celebrations of his spectacular goal for England in the last-16 tie
England’s route to the final: Possible opponents in the Euro 2024 knockout stages
England left it late, but Gareth Southgate’s side are through to the quarter-finals of Euro 2024 after a dramatic victory over Slovakia in the last-16.
Jude Bellingham saved England from an embarrassing defeat with a stunning last-minute overhead kick, before Harry Kane scored at the start of extra time to send the Three Lions through.
It was shaping up to be another nightmare evening in Gelsenkirchen but Southgate was vindicated for his lack of changes as his biggest stars finally arrived to turn defeat into victory.
England will still need a huge improvement in the knockout phase of the competition if they are to live up to their pre-tournament billing as one of the favourites, but they have had a stroke of fortune with the draw.
What is England’s route to the final of Euro 2024?
Should England miraculously transform into a tournament threat at these Euros, their path to the final in Berlin is at least inviting
Trent Alexander-Arnold can dispel Gareth Southgate myth with obvious England change
The Trent Alexander-Arnold Experiment is dead. Time for another Trent Alexander-Arnold Experiment. Liverpool’s vice-captain seems a misunderstood, underused talent at international level. His time in midfield spanned 123 minutes against Serbia and Denmark and was of sufficient importance, such a scientific voyage of discovery, that it assumed a status of its own. It was an ‘Experiment’.
That it has been deemed a failure was apparent when Gareth Southgate worked his way through a series of partners for Declan Rice against Slovakia – Kobbie Mainoo for craft, Conor Gallagher for graft, Jude Bellingham for overhead kicks – and no scenario called for Alexander-Arnold.
Not as a midfielder anyway. But there felt a pressing need for Alexander-Arnold in his original incarnation, as the right-back revolutionary, the creator supreme, a player with a capacity to make the extraordinary happen. There appeared to be a shift in thought when Gary Neville, England’s most capped right-back until a couple of weeks ago, said it was “illegal” that Alexander-Arnold wasn’t playing. “He’s the best footballer at right-back we’ve ever seen in this country,” said Neville, a more prosaic talent recognising an extraordinary one.
Alexander-Arnold can dispel Southgate myth with obvious England change
Gareth Southgate’s ‘experiment’ with Trent Alexander-Arnold did not work, but a more conventional role, Richard Jolly writes, could suit both the Liverpool star and offer England a solution to their lack of creativity in possession
Euro 2024 power rankings: Rating all eight nations ahead of the quarter-finals
Euro 2024 is heading to the quarter-finals after an entertaining start to the knockout rounds saw eight more nations exit the tournament.
Spain were the only team to collect the maximum nine points in the group phase and they continued their impressive form with a 4-1 win over Georgia. Switzerland and Germany both progressed to the quarter-finals with 2-0 wins, but it was much harder work for France, England and Portugal who respectively required a late own goal, a very late equaliser/extra-time winner and a penalty shootout to go through.
Here, we assess how every Euro 2024 nation stacks up before the quarter-finals (these rankings are revised after each round of games).
Euro 2024 power rankings: Rating all eight nations ahead of the quarter-finals
Germany and Spain remain the teams to beat while faltering England tumble down the rankings
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