Style of football a long time coming after defeat by English (5,3)

'style of football a' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I cannot tell whether it can be defined by this definition.

'long time coming after defeat by english' is the wordplay.
'long time' becomes 'eon' (eon is a kind of long time).
'coming after' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'defeat' becomes 'rout' (routing is a kind of defeating).
'by' says to put letters next to each other.
'english' becomes 'E' (abbreviation).
'eon' put after 'rout' is 'routeon'.
'routeon'+'e'='ROUTE ONE'

Can you help me to learn more?