Intimidation, casual vandalism and generally treating locals like un-people is also a form of xenophobiaBread, circuses and England defeats. One upshot of England’s alarmingly limp performance in Prague was that it diverted attention, however briefly, from a topic always seemed likely to dominate the noises off around Monday night’s game against Bulgaria in Sofia.Not so fast. England abroad: it is in many ways the never-ending story. Albeit one that seems in recent years to have involved shining a fearless light on the failings of others, even while the German bombers continue to fall, the Pope gets fucked and the bottles fly across the Baroque town squares. Ever wondered what other countries make of this myopia, the ability to say all...
Change is good but the England manager’s tactical tinkering is starting to feel reckless as the Euro 2020 defeat in Prague shows“At that moment, Svejk looked as if he had fallen down from the skies from another planet and was now looking with a naive wonder at a new world, where people were demanding from him idiotic questions he had never heard before.” Jaroslav Hasek’s great Czech comic novel The Good Soldier Svejk follows its amiable hero through the contortions of central Europe during the first world war. Its real subject, though, is human folly, human conflict and the absurdity of human attempts to manage the chaos. At which point cut to Mason Mount on Friday night in Prague, another...
Prague steels itself for England’s fans, Ireland may have a new hero in Aaron Connolly and Scotland are desperate to find goalsIn what looks certain to resemble the world’s most unedifying stag party, an estimated 6,000 England fans will descend on Prague to watch Gareth Southgate’s team take on the Czech Republic. Unsurprisingly designated as a “high risk” fixture, this Friday night game will attract no shortage of thirsty visitors to the Czech capital, hellbent on making a weekend of it in a city renowned for the cheapness of its beer and myriad other nocturnal delights. Scheduled to kick off at 8.45pm local time, when more patriotic fans will have had all day to occupy the city’s Old Town Square,...
The Chelsea midfielder often looks the part but put in a couple of frustrating displays and Gareth Southgate has other optionsThere comes a point when a Ross Barkley run starts to feel like Ross Barkley’s career: rich in promise, low on substance. The signature Barkley burst certainly looks good when it starts. It certainly feels exciting. It definitely feels as if something important is going to happen when he picks up the ball in his own half and sets off on a charge into opposition territory.Then the wait begins. The momentum stalls. The deeper Barkley goes, the less threatening he looks. One finds oneself willing him on, urging him to pick the right pass, but the moment slips away and...
Individual mistakes that gifted Kosovo goals will worry Gareth Southgate but there is no reason to think they will be repeated come the real thing next summerWhen Gareth Southgate sat down to meet the media in the Terry Paine lounge at St Mary’s on Tuesday night, the topic in hand was human error.Such a debate would normally offer great insight for all of us, given our proclivity for mistakes in the most unexpected (and expected) of circumstances. But this was specifically to do with the errors of human footballers, and the very best footballers at that, so the learnings for mere mortals were limited. However much you might wish to put yourself in Declan Rice’s shoes, in a very real...