The qualifying tweak that admitted North Macedonia was a plus but third-placed teams advancing undermines integrityA little over a decade ago, John Delaney, the infamous then president of the Football Association of Ireland, approached Sepp Blatter and outlined his proposal to expand the Euros from 16 teams to 24. A little later, having thought about it, Blatter came back and told him he thought it was an excellent scheme, saying: “You should be honoured the president of Fifa said it was very good.” Blatter, notoriously, was a man who had 50 ideas a day, 51 of them bad. Related: How to support our sports coverage (without asking a billionaire) | Jonathan Liew Related: Belgium’s attacking riches bail out creaking back...
Striker’s reinstatement was debated for its effect on the dressing room – but the biggest problems are on the pitchIt needs more, we know, than the names on the teamsheet. Yet as France toiled against a stubborn, ultra-motivated Hungary who were as obstructive as their ebullient public demanded, it was difficult not to think that la mayonnaise ne prend pas – that it just wasn’t coming together. Certainly in the front part of the field, that was the case.Some will want to pin that, inevitably, on the return of Karim Benzema to the squad amid much fanfare. Yet while there were mutterings about the sex tape scandal that had precipitated his five-and-a half-year absence from the France squad (he denies...
Progress through Group D has become a little tortured but England are not in as bad a spot as some would have us believeOh dear. This wasn’t how it looked in the brochures. If you believe everything you read England’s progress through Euro 2020 Group D has now become a kind of social media meme made flesh.How it started: 37 goals in qualifying, Gareth stroking his beard in the shadow of the Goljak mountains, pondering his weapons of fluently interchangeable attacking destruction. Related: Harry Kane left looking out of place as system built around him fails to click | Jonathan Liew England do not have a Kevin De Bruyne. But they have missed Jordan Henderson, a different kind of presence...
Kane tried to play his usual dual role but ended up tripping over himself as his attacking colleagues ran in circlesPerhaps it really was the end times. Perhaps it really was the nadir. Perhaps it really was the worst England performance we had seen in a generation. Certainly it will feel that way to Gareth Southgate and his team as they awaken this morning to the scalding verdict of a scornful nation, still seething at being forced to give up a perfectly good Friday night for that.It wasn’t an awful game, as such. But given the froth and bubble of the buildup, it felt just a little hollow, a little oversold: like the slap-up meal that ends up being served...
Gareth Southgate decided not to start Aston Villa man and that caution underpinned England’s dour display against ScotlandWith four minutes to play at Wembley, with a feeling of the air shooting up out of the stadium, possibilities folding in on themselves, with the kilted men in the stands already on their feet, arms spread in a swell of fond, goalless-draw triumphalism, Jack Grealish took a pass and was followed right the way back into his own half by Stephen O’Donnell. Grealish turned and twisted and feinted, like a seahorse twirling across the coral, and eventually drew a knee to the thigh from an exasperated O’Donnell, who was booked as he sprinted back.It is always tempting to see signs and flags....