On another occasion, the Three Lions were told the story of the England crest they wear. Owen Eastwood, a former lawyer of Māori descent, went to the National Archives at Kew, in south-west London, where a man in gloves brought him a royal seal from the late 1100s when then-King Richard the Lionheart made a depiction of three lions an emblem of England.

“A sacred artefact from the team’s whakapapa,” Eastwood remarked, looking forward to sharing his belief that the three lions represented fearlessness and ferocity but also leadership and the value of belonging to a pride or a tribe.

That the lion is such a powerful symbol in African culture was also something he drew upon. The ferociousness of the lions during the construction of the Kenya-Uganda Railway is etched in the English folklore, hence the nickname, Three Lions.

All of this iconography – the three lions, the legacy numbers, the ceremonial presentations of shirts and caps – was felt to strengthen that sense of identity. So too was the importance of sharing the players’ individual stories both internally and with the outside world. There were sessions at St George’s Park where they talked about what playing for England meant to them on an individual level, talking about the sacrifices they have made, the hurdles they have overcome and the people and the communities they felt they were representing.

It resonated, particularly with those youngsters taking their first steps in the development teams. At a time when the hold of the club game was becoming tighter and tighter but opportunities for homegrown players in the Premier League were becoming more and more scarce, there was an opportunity to present the England team as something that could be central to their identity as footballers and as people.

This is particularly important when so many of the players involved are from dual-nationality backgrounds. There had been complacency at times in the past, an assumption that any player selected to play for England would regard it as the pinnacle of their career. There was an emphasis on the players weaving their own diverse stories into the England narrative and into the way the team’s story was projected both internally and externally.

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“Before the 2018 World Cup, there was a conscious decision around communication, to start telling the stories of the players,” Reddin says. “It was about getting away from the celebrity angle and more into ‘This is who we are. This is where we’ve come from. These are motivations’. That was an external thing in terms of the message they were putting out to the media, but internally, it was also about the players getting to know their team-mates beyond a superficial level.”

Then there was the seven-minute video presentation that was shown to every player joining the England setup for the first time. It began with Southgate’s missed penalty in the Euro 96 semi-final shootout defeat against Germany, reflecting the importance of showing the character that was needed to compete in the most pressurised games and to bounce back from disappointments when they happen.

It touched upon other historic moments, such as the 1966 World Cup, but it also stated that, as members of a privileged group, they have both an opportunity and a duty to contribute and enhance the ongoing story of the England tribe.

It might all sound like obvious, entry-level stuff, you might think, but it is also the type of thing that was absent from the curriculum in those days when previous generations of England players felt preoccupied with the club rivalries that divided them rather than by the common cause that should have united them.

In the build-up to one of Gareth Southgate’s early games in charge, a World Cup qualifier away to Scotland in June 2017, England’s players were bemused to find themselves being taken off to a mystery location – and more than a little alarmed, in some cases, when they realised they had arrived at the Royal Marines training centre at Woodbury Common in Devon.

As well as camping under the stars, which was a struggle for Kyle Walker and Kieran Trippier after their unsuccessful attempts to put their tent up, there was a four-mile hike carrying 21kg (46lb) rucksacks and underwater manoeuvres. Rather than testing them physically, it was all about trying to take the players out of their comfort zone and finding ways to help each other through moments of difficulty.

“The Royal Marines trip was a ‘splash’ event, which created an impact for a time,” Reddin says. “But what is more important is the lessons you learn and the stories you tell. From the start, it was about trying to develop that cultural connection from each group and each team, building up to the senior team. We talked about eight different areas related to identity. I’m not going to list them all, but we’re talking about things like collaboration, leadership, belief. It’s about building a deeper level of teamwork and understanding.

“The All Blacks talk about getting ‘bone-deep’ rather than ‘skin-deep’. It’s about really getting to know each other and each other’s motivations, rather than just being work colleagues and sharing an office space. It’s about a deeper level of teamwork and understanding. Without that level of teamwork and understanding, yes you can still have moments where talented people combine for great moments, but if you’re going to assume that every player is really proud to play for England and they all have the same motivations about identity and pride in the shirt, then you’re making some massive assumptions.”

Some will question the value of that. Some will say that it all comes down to talent and finding the right system. But listen to Southgate and you cannot escape the emphasis on togetherness and uniting behind a common cause – creating the kind of identity and spirit that has eluded so many previous England teams and managers. Team-building, he has said, “is about much more than talent. It’s about relationships and the strength of those bonds.”

And it’s about knowing who and what you are representing.

For years, players came and went from the England squad without ever building up those relationships. Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville have admitted that their rivalry at club level, for Liverpool and Manchester United respectively, led them to regard each other with disdain during their playing days, only to discover years later, as Sky Sports colleagues, that they have more in common than they had ever imagined.

Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard have recounted how they were young team-mates at West Ham United, but saw themselves as rivals after their career paths took them on to Manchester United and Chelsea respectively. Only later, working together for now defunct UK broadcaster BT Sport, did they reconnect and reflect upon the divisive nature of those club rivalries when they should have been pulling in the same direction for England.

It is different now. You see that in the way the players interact with each other, both in front of the television cameras and behind the scenes at St George’s Park, without the slightest thought about their club rivalries. There are different social groups within the squad, but the old divisions along club lines are a thing of the past.

There was one flare-up, in November 2019, when Sterling confronted Joe Gomez in the canteen at St George’s Park in response to a perceived slight during Manchester City’s Premier League defeat by Liverpool. Southgate responded by dropping Sterling from the squad for a game against Montenegro. Some misinterpreted this as the manager playing to the gallery, trying to assert his authority over the group. Within Southgate’s inner circle, they always said it was something else — an important statement about a culture of togetherness in this new England era and the need to clamp down on any act of dissent or disharmony.

That episode led some to cite Southgate’s admiration for the All Blacks’ famed “no d**kheads” policy. And it is certainly true that this is a principle the England manager shares, along with a fascination with the All Blacks’ culture. But he never thought Sterling was a d**khead. What he felt was that, for the good of the group, Sterling had to be punished and then allowed to put the matter behind him. “And I think through that adversity, we’re stronger as a group for it,” Southgate said subsequently.

There have been more challenges as the squad has evolved and competition for places has intensified. Arsenal defender Ben White did not enjoy the England squad environment, left the camp during the group stage at the 2022 World Cup, citing “personal reasons” and, according to Southgate, has declared himself unavailable for selection.

Sterling, one of those previously described by Southgate as a “tribal elder” lost his place in the squad after that same World Cup and has not been called up since. Henderson, who was regarded by many as the embodiment of Southgate’s values, has missed out on the Euro 2024 squad after a troubled season at club level. Kyle Walker has been made vice-captain, while players such as Declan Rice, who joined Southgate’s leadership team earlier in the season, will be encouraged to take more responsibility with the squad.

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Some of the ideas and concepts introduced by Eastwood and former FA head of team strategy and performance Dave Reddin and enthusiastically embraced by Southgate were unashamedly borrowed from rugby union, particularly those around “ownership” of the team’s values.

“And that’s one of the biggest challenges you face when you come into football from the outside,” Reddin says. “You will hear, ‘It might work in rugby, but it won’t work in football. Footballers are different. They’re not like rugby players’. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘They’re not educated, articulate’.

“And that’s completely false, in my view.

“Fundamentally, these kids are no different to many of the kids you meet in other sports. They’re capable of leadership and they’re capable of taking ownership. What has been different, traditionally, is the expectation of rugby players in their culture. They were expected to have an opinion and contribute to meetings and shape that culture, whereas in football, traditionally, you’re expected to, ‘do as the gaffer says’. It’s dictatorial, but you can change that. And that’s what they’ve done in the England setup.”

Every step of the way, it has been about togetherness. It has been about changing the team spirit and culture so international get-togethers are something to look forward to rather than to dread – or indeed something to try to avoid if possible, with many players in previous generations requiring little persuasion from their club’s manager or medical staff to pull out of an England squad.

It has become a setup where there is an opportunity to shape the narrative rather than be weighed down by it. For all of that to happen, Southgate and his staff needed to foster a sense of identity and recover that lost sense of meaning.

And it comes back to whakapapa.

Throughout almost eight years in charge, Southgate has kept referencing the values and principles of a tribe; understanding what it represents historically and how the way players perform in the present will impact on the future of the tribe. “There is a longer history than just us, so we must have the humility to recognise where we are in that journey, but also to make the most of that moment and leave the team in a better place than we found it,” he said before this tournament began.

That is the essence of whakapapa.

As Eastwood puts it, “Whakapapa points a finger at us and tells us, ‘You will not be judged by your money or celebrity or sense of pride. You will be judged by what you did for the tribe’.”

And in recent years, it has for once been possible to read those words, in connection with the England men’s football team, and find that they chime with what is happening on the pitch.

• The Athletic report