England gets closer to the fans and regains symbols – 03/22/2024 – Sport

On June 10, 1984, John Barnes scored a goal that is still considered one of the most beautiful in the history of the English team. The attacker took the ball from the intermediary, dribbled past five players, including the goalkeeper, and scored. Mark Hateley scored the second in a 2-0 victory over Brazil in a friendly at the Maracanã.

After the match, on the plane, members of the far-right National Front party were on the flight with the team. In a story told in his autobiography, Barnes said the group shouted that the game was 1-0 because “a black goal didn’t count.” These were dark times in English football.

When he was introduced as Brazil’s coach in January, Dorival Júnior asked fans to believe in the team and said that this is “the Brazilian people’s team”. The departure in recent years was a mixture of bad results and political context — there are many people who don’t want to use hopscotch. The English went through something similar. The relationship with the national team in recent decades has been one of ups and downs, and impacted by the historical and political moment. But it’s never been this good. How did they regain the fans’ love?

The 1980s, the time of Barnes’ great goal, were the height of the crisis. Hooliganism drove fans away from the stadiums and deprived the English of their love for football and their own national identity.

“If you were a football fan in the 1980s, they would look at you dirty, they would assume you were a hooligan,” he told Sheet Roger Domeneghetti, professor of journalism at Northumbria University and author of the book “Everybody Wants to Rule the World – Britain, Sport & the 1980s”, in translation free).

From the mid-1990s, in the period known as Cool Britannia, through art, fashion, music, the British flag was displayed with pride, whether in the election of Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair or on the Spice Girls’ clothes. Football was on the rise. David Beckham has become one of the most famous men on the planet.

In the following decades, far-right groups such as the English Defense League used the St. George’s cross — from the flag of England — as a political symbol, adopting the strategy that those who supported them were patriots; otherwise, he was the enemy of the nation.

“It was a moment when people discussed what the flag of England and the cross of St. George meant, who they belonged to,” said Domeneghetti. “If, in the 1990s, the symbols associated with what it meant to be English were well-regarded, from the 2000s onwards, with right-wing politicians criticizing immigration and the debates that led to Brexit, these representations, once again, became problematic. .”

After the referendum on the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union, Brexit supporters tried to associate the team’s good performance with a prosperous country after the bloc’s “independence”.

But, at the same time, in 2016, Gareth Southgate took over the England team and the team’s image began to change. The current generation of players and the coach — who stand up for causes such as gender equality and the fight against racism — play a fundamental role in bringing back this pride.

“The passion of English fans for the national team today is a hundred times greater than before Southgate took over,” he told Sheet Tom Barclay, reporter for The Sun tabloid.

“Before Southgate, national football was bad, people preferred to watch their clubs, players didn’t seem to enjoy representing the country.”

“There was no love from anyone. Southgate brought that passion back.”

England reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 2018, the final of the European Championship in 2021, and the quarter-finals of the World Cup the following year.

“The players have shown more love for the team and are more socially aware, more aware of their responsibilities off the field. This has played a role in the connection between the fans and the team,” said Barclay.

Domeneghetti agrees. “When Southgate took over the national team, he started a movement to humanize players, soften the image of athletes and make sure people don’t just see them as football players.”

What’s missing for the fan’s love to be complete? Titles. England only has one international achievement for men, the 1966 World Cup.

The friendlies against Brazil and Belgium are the last before the announcement of the list for the Euro Cup, the main competition of the year in which the English are among the favorites. England has some of the greatest young talents on the planet, such as Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden, Bukayo Saka, and nations like Germany and Italy are not going through a good phase.

But, just when it seemed that the focus was just on sport, a controversy arose on the eve of the friendly against Brazil. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the leader of the Labor opposition have complained about the new English uniform that has just been launched. The shirt features the St. George’s cross in light, dark blue and purple. Sunak said that the national flag should not be changed because it is a source of national pride and identity, and that he prefers the original, in red.

For those who don’t want to get involved in politics, the price of the shirt, £124.99 — equivalent to almost R$800 — can be scary.