Despite the jingoism, Gareth Southgate’s side do not have an easy group at a tournament tainted by Qatari sportswashingSome lessons, it seems, are never learned. Gareth Southgate was characteristically measured in his response to Friday’s World Cup draw but most seemed to follow Kyle Walker’s line that “you’ve got to be happy with the teams we’ve drawn”.The triumphalism was not quite as strident as before the 2010 World Cup, but if other teams really are inspired by the misunderstood ironies of Three Lions, England’s group-stage opponents are going to be raging at some of Saturday morning’s headlines. Continue reading...
The switch against Albania feels significant, as the flexible formation fits England’s players, especially the full-backsPlayers may still be suffering their post-Euro hangovers, the last of the broken glass may only just have been swept up from Wembley Way, but the World Cup is already only a year and a week away. For England the lessons of the Euros are still being assessed and assimilated and yet, already, FA officials are travelling out to Qatar to scope out training bases. The final run-in has already begun.Suddenly a 5-0 win over a desperately disappointing Albania – how on earth had that side, even allowing for defensive injuries, beaten Hungary home and away? – is not just a jolly night out, a...
The England manager picked a brave starting XI against Hungary – their failure to win the game should not tempt him to revert to his more risk-averse nature“Failure is a figment of your imagination.” Kobe Bryant had a pretty good line on the importance of trial and error, on failure as the father of success, on disaster on Monday as a signpost to triumph on Friday. To be fair this is perhaps a little easier to embrace as an approach to life when you happen, by an accident of fate, to be Kobe Bryant. Or indeed when failure doesn’t involve a migraine-inducing attempt to break down B-list international opponents at a lukewarm Wembley, while a group of budget fascists riot...
The Euros showed that conservatism still dominates international football, but there are signs the club-style cohesiveness shown by Spain and Italy may be taking overThe broken glass has been cleared. Wembley Way is no longer sticky underfoot. As the sense of shame and disappointment fades, and the knee-zjerk panaceas melt away, it is perhaps worth reflecting that Euro 2020, however disgracefully it ended, was one of the great tournaments, perhaps the best since Euro 2000, and asking what that might mean for next year’s World Cup and beyond.There was a long period in which international football represented the pinnacle of the game; that was where you saw the greatest concentration of the best players. Then in the late 70s, as...
England’s World Cup-winning coach changed team and tactics as he alone saw fit, and his successor at Euro 2020 does likewiseAlf Ramsey was not a man much given to drama, but when he read out the team for England’s final warm-up friendly before the 1966 World Cup, away to Poland in Chorzow, the players noted a distinct pause before he delivered the 11th name.Alan Ball was in on the right, so everybody assumed that meant a conventional winger on the left, probably Terry Paine. But Ramsey’s grand reveal was a genuine surprise: Martin Peters. As he had against Spain the previous December, Ramsey was going without wingers. For only the second time in history, England would play 4-4-2. Related: Gareth...