As his last tournament cycle starts, let’s appreciate a manager who has endured a grossly disproportionate level of derisionGareth Southgate, the whole of England is with you. Perhaps this was the first and last point at which these words were ever spoken truthfully. Perhaps it wasn’t even true at the time. The inevitable tranche of snark and eyeball-rolling at Southgate’s latest England squad belies the fact that very little of substance has changed in the three months since the defeat against France.The seven midfielders are the same as they were in Qatar. Harry Maguire is still in the centre of defence. Harry Kane’s penalty is still airborne. And for all the soul-searching and agonising, Southgate too is still there: still...
England were brave and rose to the occasion but France had no need to – when they had five good minutes, they scoredMidnight strikes and the party is over. England crumple to the turf in fragments: one here, a couple over there, one more over by the centre circle. The Al Bayt pitch is a field of broken dreams, of hope and despair, and hope again, and despair again. In the VVIP seats, David Beckham is holding his head in his hands, although for only one of the reasons he should be. Afterwards Gareth Southgate will talk about how close they came, how much these players can still achieve. England are proud. England are defiant. But England are done.It is...
Captain’s miss will haunt him but the reality is France were winning this game before they even started winning itFor a while, in those endless, scrolling micro-moments of gape, shock, acceptance and slowly gathering grief, the ball didn’t look like it was actually going to come down. There was always something weird about its angle, something anti-gravitational.The night was suddenly quiet, the ball a lovely white thing out there all alone in all that space. Maybe it could just stay there. Maybe this thing could just stretch out and not actually happen, or not happen enough to matter. Continue reading...
Alongside the various animal attempts to people-please before the quarter-final against France are an increasingly deranged series of stunts from the tabloidsEngland face France in the World Cup quarter-final on Saturday and the dwindling band of psychic animals has spoken. In the early stages of any World Cup, of course, you cannot move for obliging creatures predicting match results. However, as the tournament progresses, several of this global menagerie will have a shocker, effectively knocking them out of further opportunities to have their random movements anthropomorphised by pushy human keepers/people who reckon there might be two hundred quid in it from a tabloid. As we near the business end of Qatar 2022, though, a psychic alpaca from Chipping Norton is...
Gareth Southgate’s team have reached par in Qatar – but defeating the world champions will require something differentTowards the end of Gareth Southgate’s post-match press conference, deep in the harshly lit fibreglass bunker that is the Al Bayt Stadium media suite, England’s manager was asked by an Argentinian journalist for his thoughts on the prospect down the track of having to face Lionel Messi. “Well,” Southgate frowned, making a show of giving the question all due consideration. “He’s a good player.” As super-dry wee-hours press room one-liners go, it was pretty good.After that Southgate just kind of shrugged and said something like, yeah, he’s a genius but we’ll worry about that if it happens. England have to play France first...