Southgate keeps getting handed luck of the draw at major tournaments

FOOTBALL hasn’t come home yet — but opportunity keeps knocking loudly on the front door for Gareth Southgate and England.

Southgate is rarely considered a brave manager but fortune consistently favours the Three Lions boss in major tournaments.

By the time England kicked off their final Group C game against Slovenia, they knew the four strongest teams in the tournament — France, Spain, Portugal and Germany — would all be in the opposite half of the draw, should they win the group.

A grim goalless draw was good enough to achieve that, thanks to Denmark’s inability to see off Serbia, but the prospect of a tricky last-16 tie against Holland still loomed.

Yet, after Belgium had failed to win their group and also ended up in the ‘Half of Death’, came the extraordinary shock of Georgia defeating Portugal.

This, somehow, meant that England had avoided the Dutch and been handed a plum tie against Slovakia instead. None of this is English arrogance.

Indeed, it is surely impossible for any Englishman to be arrogant about their national team after watching back-to-back stink-bombings against Denmark and Slovenia.

And while there are no easy games in Euros finals — at least not now that Scotland are out — there are certainly easier halves of a draw.

And Southgate’s side keep on ending up in them.

Should England defeat the Slovaks in the last 16 on Sunday — and nobody is regarding that as a certainty — they would face either Switzerland or Italy in the quarters.

The Swiss are perennial last-16 losers and, while Italy are reigning European champions, England beat them home and away in the qualifiers. Then would come a potential semi-final against one of Austria, Turkey, Romania or the Dutch.

All of these are useful teams and England would need a vast improvement on their previous two performances to advance to that stage.

Yet despite being bang average at best so far, the nature of the draw suggests Southgate’s side are more likely than any other nation to reach the final.

And we have been here before — most notably at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

There, England faced Colombia, Sweden and Croatia in the knockout stages — with France, Brazil, Argentina, a peak Belgian team and Portugal all on the opposite side of the draw, while Spain fell by the wayside in the last 16.

At the last Euros in 2021, England defeated Croatia in their group and Germany in the last 16 but again the draw fell kindly. Ukraine in the quarter-finals and the Danes in the semis were a godsend.

The Qatar World Cup provided a straightforward passage to the quarters, where England were edged out by holders France. But had Harry Kane scored a second penalty that night and the Three Lions had progressed, his team would have faced underdogs Morocco in the semis.

This is not to decry Southgate or belittle his achievements, merely to point out that the cards have so often fallen in his team’s favour.

He has been to enough tournaments to know that the only expectation should be the unexpected.

Speaking earlier this week about the idea of winning the group to avoid Germany in the last 16, the England chief said: “It would be a myth to think we're going to have an easier route by avoiding certain teams or playing others."

That is the only attitude he can take. There is no room for complacency, especially when your team has been consistently poor all year.

But for the rest of us it is clear — Southgate has enjoyed the luck of the draw again.

The yellow-brick road to Berlin for the final on July 14 looks significantly smoother than it had done a few days ago.

Now it’s time for opportunity to be seized at last.