The most important half-time of England's tournament: IAN LADYMAN on the moment that changed the Euros... where Gareth Southgate went against his better judgement

Few teams get to the crest of a glorious wave without getting wet along the way. Gareth Southgate's England are no exception.

When it comes to turning points on their journey to Berlin, meanwhile, there have been a few.

We know about Jude Bellingham's Roy of the Rovers moment at the death against Slovakia. We know about Bukayo Saka's sweet pearl delivered with his left foot a game later against Switzerland. Without these, Southgate and his team would be on the beach right now. No glory, no love, no thanks. Only failure. Sometimes the margins are that fine in tournament football.

And what of our opponents? They missed moments to skewer us too.

At 1-0 down in Gelsenkirchen, a hideous mix-up between Kyle Walker and John Stones presented the ball to Slovakia's David Strelec. With Jordan Pickford off his line, Strelec chipped towards an empty goal from 25 yards - and missed. Would England have recovered a 2-0 deficit? Probably not.

Then, in the final minute of regulation time in Dusseldorf, a Swiss cross from the right seemed destined to land on the head of the unmarked Dan Ndoye at the far post only for his own team-mate Breel Embolo in front of him to take the ball away from him with a slight but wholly decisive touch of his own. At the death, meanwhile, Xherdan Shaqiri hit the bar from a corner.

Big moments all. Moments that shape tournaments, help to shift narratives and ultimately define careers.

But none of them come close in importance to what happened at half-time in Cologne after Southgate had watched his team toil so desperately for 45 minutes against Slovenia in their final game in Group C.

That was the day of the plastic beer cups. The day Southgate approached his team's supporters at full-time and returned to the dressing room with half a pint of Carlsberg on his brogues.

It was probably the most forgettable game of England's forgettable group stage. A look back at the statistics now show that there was a total of five shots in the game. Suffice to say none of them ever looked like going in.

But it was also the day that Southgate first looked across at young Kobbie Mainoo and told him to get stripped and with the benefit of hindsight that remains the stand out decision made by the England manager during these four long weeks in Germany.

It seems an awful long time ago that Southgate paired Trent Alexander-Arnold with Declan Rice in game one and game two. It didn't work. The Liverpool player was substituted both times and then, for the Slovenia game, he was replaced by Conor Gallagher. That didn't work either. 

As England's football slowly turned from merely disappointing in to some weird configuration of self-harm, Gallagher was hooked at half-time and replaced by Mainoo, the young Manchester United midfielder.

And that was it. That was the solution. That was the way forward. That was the piece in the midfield jigsaw that Southgate had been looking for since injury and poor form deprived him of Kalvin Phillips and Jordan Henderson in the weeks and months leading in to the tournament.

The uptick in England's performances was not immediately apparent. They were desperate against Slovakia and frankly deserved to lose. But in that particular area of the field, England were better once Mainoo was involved and the 19-year-old's influence has steadily grown from that point on.

There have been some memorably fabulous individual moments from Bellingham, Saka and now Ollie Watkins against the Netherlands. But Mainoo has been England's best and most consistent player.

It is fair to say that Southgate threw him in against his better judgement. He has always feared that England would be left slightly too open defensively with Mainoo in the team. The England manager feels the youngster's most natural instinct is to look and move forwards.

Nevertheless, part of management is about realising when you have made a mistake. It's about having the presence and self-awareness to know that the path you have chosen to walk is the wrong one and that it's time to take a diversion.

As it turned out, Southgate had to make two such calls. He admitted the Alexander-Arnold selection was a gamble and ditched it. Then he ditched Gallagher after just one half of football. 

At the time it all looked rather like a manager who didn't really have an answer to a problem he had known about for some time and maybe it was. Southgate and England got there in the end, though, and that is really all that matters.

Rice sees Mainoo at close quarters in the heart of the English midfield and likes what he sees. The two players occasionally bicker as a game gets tight and Rice liked that. He liked the younger player's confidence, his chutzpah. Mainoo plays like that, too. 

He is not usually vocally expressive or indeed in his mannerisms. But just about everything he does involves a forward thought or movement and that is perhaps the one thing that he has brought to this England team here that they desperately needed.

Once a bright opening against Serbia three-and-half weeks ago had petered out, far too much of what England did was slow, predictable and backwards. Mainoo helped to change that. 

He has played with the confidence that sometimes only youth can give a player, ignoring the clear hesitancy and fear visible in the actions and football of his team-mates to break lines, play forward passes quickly and run in to areas where things can go wrong but, equally, can happen in your favour.

A year ago, we knew nothing about the kid from Stockport. If his appearance in the England midfield in Germany came about on the back of other players' failings then it was certainly case during last year's season of Premier League struggle at Old Trafford.

Sunday's Euro 2024 final against Spain will present Mainoo with his greatest challenge yet. The Spanish midfield two of Rodri and Fabian Ruiz are a step or two up from any of the opponents Mainoo has been asked to stare down during this tournament.

It has been partly because of him that England managed to secure an increased weight of possession against Switzerland and then the Netherlands. It will not be so easy against Spain and at the Olympiastadion in the German capital Mainoo will quite possibly face the biggest challenge of his career.

England are lucky to have him, though. Southgate showed an unnerving lack of flexibility in the early stages of this tournament. Despite his team's progression to the final, he has not always been at his best. He has often been too reactive when we have needed him to be the opposite.

But in telling Mainoo – his fourth choice central midfield player – to get ready in the dressing room in Cologne on June 25, Southgate made one of the most important judgement calls of his eight year tenure as national coach. 

In doing so, he injected some purpose and attitude in to what had a been a ponderous England team and unleashed another young English superstar out in to the wider world. 

It will be a surprise if Mainoo spends too much time from this point on looking back.