Gareth Southgate’s World Cup captain Harry Kane did what he has done in every game in which he has led England: he scored. Plus Nigerian replica shirt mania grips the capitalThis was Harry Kane’s first international appearance since he was named’s England’s captain for the World Cup by Gareth Southgate and he did what he has always done when leading his country – score. It is now six goals in five games with the armband and while his effort here should have been saved by Nigeria’s goalkeeper, Francis Uzoho, it was still hit with a level of decisiveness and snap that suggests the Tottenham forward is heading to Russia in good nick, mentally as well as physically, with his general...
The forward – who has been attracting all the scrutiny, from tattoos to timekeeping – gave his manager reason for encouragement in the 2-1 victory against NigeriaRaheem Sterling might not have played here and would have accepted missing out. Gareth Southgate’s original intention had been to leave the forward out for the friendly against Nigeria as punishment for a tardy arrival at the national squad’s training camp last month.Yet, in the context of the player coming “under fire from every other direction” over the last week, the manager recognised this was the time to stand by his man. The protective shield flung down around one of their own is starting to feel like an indication of England’s strength. Related: England...
Gareth Southgate’s most pressing need at Wembley was for his players to show something in attack against Italy – and Sterling and Vardy were happy to obligeOn Wembley Way before kick-off a louche, drowsy New Orleans‑style jazz band dressed in Three Lions shirts could be heard parping and tootling away, serenading the strolling crowds. At the time it seemed a slightly off‑key soundtrack to another outing for this guarded, orderly England team, like cutting the highlights of a chess match to the soundtrack to the Benny Hill show.Three hours later it was probably all for the best that England had failed to keep their sixth successive clean sheet on another mannered, quietly intriguing night for this doggedly constructed team. When it...
Assured victory in Amsterdam is more proof that the coach’s plan of canny possession football is not just empty chatterLast month Gareth Southgate did a long broadcast interview with the journalist Guillem Balagué. It kicked off with Balagué lobbing up a soft one, asking England’s manager what album he would choose to keep if he could listen to only one.Rather than just doing the decent thing and saying, yeah, I listen to Drake in the car, Southgate went on to talk – for absolutely ages – about how lucky he was to have been in so many dressing rooms, to have been exposed to different kinds of music, different genres and cultures. Continue reading...
A younger United States team with eyes firmly fixed on the future emerged from the ashes of a thwarted World Cup campaign on Tuesday night in PortugalWorld Cup cycles normally end with the World Cup finals and only then begin anew. But after a disastrous qualification campaign, the theme for the evening in Leiria, Portugal was that the new cycle for the United States started on Tuesday with a 1-1 draw against the European champions. “To get that kind of result against that kind of team is huge,” right back DeAndre Yedlin said in the immediate aftermath. “Obviously the feeling of not making the World Cup is not going to leave, but it’s something that makes it a little bit...