England played like a dream but this is reality for Gareth Southgate’s men

When did it start getting weird for you? Perhaps it was the moment when the German referee committed the ultimate act of patronising mercy: ending the game on 90 minutes, without injury time. Perhaps it was when Gareth Southgate executed an effortless triple substitution midway through the second half, thus sealing this game’s noncompetitive exhibition status. Perhaps it was when Jordan Henderson – no, really, Jordan Henderson – scored his first ever international goal to put England 4-0 up in a major tournament quarter-final and celebrated with the impromptu fist-pump of a man who, if we’re going to be brutally honest, hadn’t remotely prepared for this moment.

By which point, of course, events on the pitch had long since ceased to tally with any sort of knowable reality. The promise of a dangerous, mine-studded assignment against a fast and fearless Ukraine side evaporated in the space of a hot Rome hour. Any lingering neuroses or insecurities had long since dissipated. If Iceland in 2016 was an imperfect parallel, then in a way so was everything else. Victorious, vindictive and vindicated, Gareth Southgate and his team are coming home to a semi-final against – ah, who cares. Let’s all get drunk and head-butt the furniture.

Naturally, there remains a note of persistent and understandable scepticism amid all this. The fact that England’s only assignment away from Wembley was against the limited, exhausted world No 24 side will provide ample comfort to exactly the people it needs to. People will moan and complain, because ultimately people like to moan and complain. People will continue to trash England because they like trashing England. This is normal, natural, the way of the world.

But the rest of us, who have seen Southgate’s team navigate their way with perfect tempo and malign intentions through a campaign that most assumed would meet its end against the first decent opposition, are entitled to dream a little bigger. A formidable Denmark lie in wait. But for now England can proceed with utter confidence in Comrade Gareth, his band of reconstructed Marxists and his faultless five-year plan.

And really, what unfolded over these 90 minutes at the Stadio Olimpico was a kind of surreal cheese dream, a parallel universe in which England negotiate major knockout games with immaculate control, where they react to an early goal with purpose rather than panic, where they allow the opposition to have the ball, where they seem to possess all the answers. Yes, Ukraine were desperately poor. But no team is poor in a vacuum. From the first whistle England moved and protected the ball with an assured, measured swagger we may as well call arrogance.

Witness Harry Kane’s opening goal, crafted by the shuffling shoes of Raheem Sterling, allowed essentially to walk the ball into the final third. A rich vein of form – such as Sterling is in now – creates its own yard of space, as defenders play your reputation as much as the ball. Here it offered Sterling just enough room to slide the ball through to Kane, whose finish felt unladen, unburdened, free. That goal against Germany seems to have liberated him. Football is, at its heart, a deceptively simple game.

And so Ukraine massed again in their banks of yellow shirts, challenging England to break them down again. Perhaps it was inevitable that the early goal was followed by a period of sterile, needless consolidation, as Ukraine recognised that their best way back into the game was to let England stew in their own juices for a while. But within a minute of the restart any thought of taking the game deep was buried by the head of Harry Maguire: the sort of outsized weapon that in a more strictly policed sport would surely be outlawed as an illegal performance enhancement.

That was the game, pretty much. Seconds later England would cut Ukraine open again: Kane heading home after a lightning breakaway inspired by Jadon Sancho’s recovery of possession. Henderson added the gloss from a Mason Mount corner, and through the web of pointless Ukraine attacks and ceremonial substitutions, England managed somehow to retain their poise and dignity, managed even to secure a fifth consecutive clean sheet, as if this were all the most normal thing in the world.

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Was it the perfect night? Trick question. When you are an England fan, perfection is a chimera. Every triumph is simply an invitation to hubris; every new dawn simply a foretaste of disappointment. In a way, you wondered whether England would have been better suffering a little here: grinding, scrapping, reminding themselves of their own basic mortality. But then, perhaps that’s the old, brutalised England talking. In a parallel universe, England have two games at Wembley to become champions of Europe, and it doesn’t even feel terrifying. Truly, we are in uncharted territory.