England’s World Cup exit to France is dotted with questions about what could have been

‘If you can keep your head when all about you/ Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,’ starts a soul-stirring English poem — written, incidentally, by a writer who some six years before he wrote ‘If—’ in the 1890s was posted as a journalist in an Allahabad newspaper. Whether Gareth Southgate did a rousing read of the Rudyard Kipling poem in the England dressing room prior to the quarterfinal game against France is not known. But as the England players walked back into the tunnel at Al Bayt Stadium on Saturday, the light turned off at the end of it, it would be impossible for them to not have been bombarded with one word: If.

If— in the 84th minute Harry Kane, England’s faux-Tudor captain-striker, hadn’t ballooned his spot kick….

The much-anticipated quarterfinal did not, however, swivel on that singular moment that came a minute after France defender Lucas Hernandez slammed into fresh substitute Mason Mount just inside the box. It was the culmination of an England fightback in the second half meant to only confirm on the scoreboard what was evident in play.

If— that is, as the ball in spotkicks usually do, beat the keeper and goes into the net. As it turned out, Hugo Lloris wasn’t even tested. Kane did a ‘Chris Waddle’ — the shot made famous by the England winger in the penalty shoot-out against West Germany in the 1990 World Cup that saw the ball fly up above the goal so high, like a Carrollian tea tray in the sky. And with it England’s passage to the final.
Things were not like ‘always this’. The Mbappé Machine had been contained almost throughout the match. This was made evident in the 42nd minute when the French house powerhouse was quite casually stopped and sorted by John Stones, the defender heavy shrugging him off and running away with the ball.

France was footlooser and fancyfreer in the first half of the first half. In the 17th minute, with the England pudding yet to attain firmness, France centreback Dayot Upamecano took the ball from Bukayo Saka not even with a ‘merci’ and clambered up the left flank, sent the ball across to Mbappé, then to crisscrossing Ousmane Dembélé and Antoine Griezmann, ultimately to Aurélien Tchouaméni who carromed it long-range into the bottom half of the England goal with Jordan Pickford watching on like a silent movie damsel in distress.

But England quickly picked up the gauntlet. Jude Bellingham and Jordan Henderson were dangerous on the flanks, and one could almost hear the gears turning up for Saka and Kane. It wasn’t complacency on the part of France, but an England on the pick-up. This spilled over to the second half.

This was now a match in free flow, with verbs overtaking nouns from both ends. By the 52nd minute, it was France’s turn to get nerveux. A Saka dribble brought down in the France box by the same leg — Tchouaméni’s right — that scored France’s goal. With Kane taking the penalty, and scoring – becoming with Wayne Rooney, England’s highest international scorer with 53 goals (playing 40 games less than the current Jio Cinema expert panelist) – England was surgeful.

Then, in the 78th minute, a French corner, a push into the space ahead of Harry Maguire by Giroud, a contact of the ball with his quaffed-up coiffure, and the England equaliser was left behind at the bus stop. France, despite on-field realité, was again ahead.

No ifs and buts, it was a fast and furious quarterfinal that required constantly looking over one’s shoulders. In the end, the team that kept their head about them won. With France channelling the lines that come towards the end of Kipling’s poem: ‘If you can fill the unforgiving minute/ With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, /Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it…’ Well, at least, le gig to the semifinal.