On pitch and off, Jordan Henderson typifies Southgate’s selfless England

“A single priest often does the work of a thousand soldiers”
Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens

It’s a couple of days before the start of Euro 2020 and the England squad are getting fitted for their team suits. Raheem Sterling arrives wordlessly, almost aloof, as if on some higher plane of consciousness. Jadon Sancho and Jude Bellingham argue about which of them looks more like a science teacher. Mason Mount gets distracted by his mate Declan Rice and ends up tying his tie far too short.

But the really interesting thing is seeing how everyone behaves around Jordan Henderson. Henderson is still injured and has a negligible chance of playing in the opening game. He isn’t the captain. He isn’t the best player. And yet there’s something weirdly moving about the way so many of the younger players seem to gravitate to him. Bukayo Saka and Jack Grealish both ask him to fix their ties, which Henderson does like a proud father. There’s a quiet, reverential magnetism to him.

On the morning of England’s first major men’s championship final in 55 years, it might feel a little strange to be reading a paean to a player who may not even play. Henderson has started all six of England’s Euro 2020 games on the bench, played a grand total of 106 minutes and, apart from the fourth goal in the win over Ukraine, hasn’t really made a telling contribution. And yet in another sense he has been the key to it all. To grasp the importance of Henderson is to grasp the very point of this England side: a team of 26 men with a single consciousness, one that has set aside ego and reputation and pride and hierarchy, and emerged stronger as a result.

Henderson had a conversation with Gareth Southgate a few weeks ago, just before the start of the tournament. He hadn’t played a minute for Liverpool since groin surgery at the end of February. The idea of throwing him into the mayhem of an international tournament midfield without having played a competitive game for more than three months was absurd. Henderson knew this. Southgate knew this. His playing role would be tangential at best. And yet the idea of leaving him at home never crossed Southgate’s mind.

Jordan Henderson is mobbed after scoring England’s fourth against Ukraine
Jordan Henderson is mobbed after scoring England’s fourth against Ukraine. Photograph: Alberto Pizzoli/Reuters

To understand why, you need to study some of the behaviour at the fringes of this England team during the tournament. The way Henderson, standing on the sidelines, celebrated Harry Kane’s game-clinching second goal against Germany as keenly as any fan in the stadium. The way the squad reacted as they realised it was Henderson who had notched England’s fourth goal in Rome, the first of his England career. The entire bench explodes. Phil Foden, a club rival, leaps up in genuine delight. Marcus Rashford tears towards the touchline. This is no ordinary fourth goal.

Southgate is a keen student of psychology and social sciences, and one of the books that has stayed with him is Sapiens, the bestselling anthropological study by Yuval Noah Harari. One of the book’s observations is that successful societies cannot function through coercion alone. A system of rules and government can only be enforced if those at the top believe in it. And so the biggest challenge for complex societies is not to maintain order, but to maintain belief.

This is where the priests come in. Henderson is the second-oldest member of the squad after Kyle Walker, the second-most capped after Sterling. He is the only one to have won both the Premier League and Champions League. And so to see him sit humbly and uncomplainingly on the bench, behind two midfielders from West Ham and Leeds, offers the sort of immensely powerful motif that no other member of Southgate’s party – least of all Southgate himself – could provide.

Southgate referred to the “tribal elders” in the squad before the Denmark game, but he wasn’t simply talking about seniority or experience or leadership by exemplar. He was talking about relationships: the short conversations and private words of encouragement, the acts of personal sacrifice and moral fibre that subconsciously set the standards for the whole group. He was talking about the players who define the cultural and behavioural norms that junior members of the group instinctively follow.

There is something touching and reassuring in the way this England squad has steered clear of the club cliques and inter-generational tensions that defined so many of their predecessors. Many of England’s rivals at this tournament – France, Portugal, Germany – have felt in some way torn between the old and the new, struggling to bridge the gap between them. By contrast, England and Italy have derived their success from the successful synthesis of seniority and youth.

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There is some talk that Henderson may be deployed against Italy in the final to counter their powerful centre. He remains, lest we forget, a supreme passing midfielder: intelligent and measured in possession, wise to the counter, a more effective attacking force than many remember. And yet in a strange way Henderson’s contribution has somehow transcended whatever he does on the pitch. He has become England’s midfielder emeritus, their sensei and guru and ethical centre, the missing link between coach and players, players and us.

Perhaps the main reason this England team have so captured the imagination of the country at large is not their feats on the pitch but the sense that on some level these young men represent the best of us: honest, selfless, tireless, compassionate, moral. Before this country’s biggest football game in half a century, there is perhaps no greater tribute to this England side than the idea that one of their most important players isn’t even playing for them.

Wisdom, generosity, leadership by quiet example rather than showy gesture, unity over division, the greater good over personal ambition, taking pleasure in being part of something larger than yourself: in many ways, the story of Henderson is the story we wish we could tell about England.

source: theguardian.com