England are real Euro 2024 contenders, a fact Southgate’s carping critics ignore | Jonathan Wilson

Like the nation’s cricketers in 2019, a talented Three Lions look not like a team who might get lucky but potential champions

There’s nothing like failure to make you appreciate success. As England slunk out of the Cricket World Cup there was something almost comforting about the return to the not so very distant days when they seemed to be playing a different, tamer sport to the rest of the world, when the only hope of success was to happen upon, as Adam Hollioake’s side did in Sharjah in 1997, some previously unanticipated formula that was perfect for that time in that place.

Then suddenly something clicked, England started posting scores of 350+ as standard and began beating the best sides in the world. Just as the thought began to crystallise that in a World Cup on home soil they might not actually just be genuine contenders but perhaps even favourites, an astonishing generational talent became available to them in Jofra Archer.

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