The English Toni Kroos does not exist. Nor does the English Andrea Pirlo, the English Luka Modric, the English Rodri. Instinctively, everybody knows this. England doesn’t have earthquakes, England doesn’t grow citrus fruit and England doesn’t produce technical central midfielders who can control a game and dictate the tempo of play. That’s just the way it is.
And so on a clear and bracing Helsinki night, into this paradox steps Angel Gomes. Paradoxical because in many ways the player Gomes is trying to be, the role he is being fitted for, is something that doesn’t actually exist. Naturally, because football fans are impatient and adore the dopamine rush of making instant sweeping judgments, the impulse is to measure him against this stratospheric, borderline-impossible standard. He’s either the English Pirlo. Or he isn’t. Good luck.
In any case, Gomes quickly sets to work. And there is of course a further irony here: the deep-lying midfield role is not a position that lends itself to snap verdicts or quick conclusions. This is not a role assessed on moments, or flashes of genius, or goals or assists, but on longevity and dependability and metronomic consistency, the ability to do the right thing again and again and again.
You are not here to create viral content. You are here to be perfect. One hundred passes, and it’s fine if nobody can remember a single one of them. At the highest levels of the game, where the pressing is ferocious and the centre-halves are spread wide and the margins are super-fine, it is a job akin to being the goalkeeper of the outfield. Your successes will be quickly forgotten, but your mistakes will always be disproportionately costly.
As it happens Gomes made exactly 100 passes in this game, completed 97, and one of them will certainly be remembered. Early on Trent Alexander-Arnold played the ball into Gomes, who shuffled it deliciously around the corner with the outside of his foot, through the gap and into the path of Jack Grealish who scored.
It was Gomes’s first England assist, a moment of genuine quality, and perhaps even a kind of arrival: a moment to settle and reassure him, convince him he can do a job at this level. The temptation, therefore, is to conclude that this little piece of skill perfectly demonstrates his worth to the team. But it doesn’t.
Because actually, England have a lot of players who can do this. Jude Bellingham can do it. So can Alexander-Arnold and Harry Kane and Bukayo Saka and Phil Foden and Cole Palmer and James Maddison and others. What makes Gomes distinctive, what will ultimately cement his place and define his value, is the other stuff. The other 99 passes.
Let’s come back to the idea of control. Which is often deployed as a simple synonym for possession, but actually encompasses far more: territorial control, strategic control, emotional control. When England lose control of games it is often because they get pinned back, forced to carry the ball in ever less promising areas, pushed into low-percentage options because their emotional composure has deserted them. It’s a whole package.
So the deep-lying midfielder carries the additional function of exuding calm. Shortly before Gomes’s assist he gave the ball away in the England half, allowing a quick Finland attack that ended in an early chance for Topi Keskinen. And if it feels disproportionate to single out one loose pass amid the 97 he completed without fuss, then these are simply the standards required of the job.
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But the potential upside is always worth the trouble. And against admittedly limited opposition, England with Gomes at the helm were a radically different prospect from the chaos of Wembley on Thursday night: composed and methodical, safe in the knowledge that there would always be an outlet for keeping the ball. It allowed Declan Rice to get forward in the same way he does for Arsenal, showing the enterprise and ambition that was eventually rewarded with England’s third goal.
No quick conclusions here. No sweeping judgments or wild predictions. But it is at least worth remembering that the great international midfielders do not simply land in the game fully-formed. They are moulded and matured over time. Early Modric and early Kroos were wildly different players from the artists they eventually became: more dynamic, more attacking, less reliable, still pushing at the boundaries of themselves. Pirlo was an attacking midfielder well into his 20s before gradually moving further back. Rodri was a pure passer at Villarreal, then a pure destroyer at Atlético, and only relatively recently has blossomed into full expression.
The English Kroos/Pirlo/Modric/Rodri, will not arrive in a bolt of lightning, delivered by stork or wrapped in golden cloths. But for now you have Gomes, and you have Kobbie Mainoo, and you have Adam Wharton, and you have Curtis Jones, and you have Rico Lewis, and at some point you’re going to have to invest in one of these guys for the long term. And do it again, and again, and again. Gomes might be the guy, or he might not. But at the very least England need to try and find out.
