Hart has struggled for games and form but Gareth Southgate is still set to take his 75-cap goalkeeper to Russia despite the claims of England’s younger trio“Three days ago against Spain, I felt like crying,” said Vikash Dhorasoo. “I’m not a supporter, I’m not a spectator, I’m a football player and I’m not playing football.”Filmed before and during the 2006 World Cup, the docu-film Substitute details the existential isolation felt by the France international as he watches his team-mates reach the final in Germany. Released a year after the tournament, the film is an intriguing insight into life on the bench but it also spelled the end for Dhorasoo’s international career after the manager, Raymond Domenech, took exception. Related: World...
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...
England manager must learn from his predecessor’s failings when he picks his squad for this summer’s World Cup in RussiaIf the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results”, it would come as no great surprise to discover quite a few senior figures in the Football Association headquarters wandering Blackadder style round their Wembley offices with their underpants on their head and a pencil up each nostril shouting “wibble”. England have a fondness for crow-barring star players who are not necessarily match fit into their squads for major tournaments and it is a policy that rarely yields dividends.David Beckham famously went to the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea, where he...
The Premier League’s lack of downtime is much maligned – but few clubs are truly idle over an ever more frenzied ChristmasThe Champions League returns this week and, for many, the most thrilling football tournament in Europe and arguably the world starts now. The wheat has been separated from the chaff, the Juves and Bayerns from the Qarabags and Maribors. As the first country in the history of the competition to have five teams through to the last 16, England’s interest in the knockout stages has never been greater, even if José Mourinho believes it will end sooner rather than later because of the absence of a winter break in the football calendar.Speaking in November, the Manchester United manager poo-poohed...
The England manager has eight months to get his team to express themselves at the World Cup by using the flair of Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Marcus RashfordPut out more flags. Dust down the red and white jester’s hat. Root out the gumshield, the crumpled Yekaterinburg metro map. And prepare to head once more into that strangely gruelling territory between bruised and fearful cynicism and the eternal quiver of tournament hope.England have booked their place at the World Cup in Russia after surely the most meandering, flaccid qualification victory yet devised by any England team. Slovenia were beaten by Harry Kane’s goal but make no mistake – this was both a dreadful game of football and a numbing spectacle...