Trent Alexander-Arnold and Joe Gomez did their cases no harm in Portugal and Harry Winks strengthened his in absentiaSunday afternoon at the Estádio D Afonso Henriques stadium and Gareth Southgate found himself once again fielding questions over the level of perceived progress in the year since the World Cup finals. England’s Nations League campaign had delivered another semi-final defeat but a first third-place finish in 51 years, no goals mustered from open play but a second successive penalty shootout success. “But the biggest sign of progress was the mentality of everyone after the loss to the Netherlands,” the manager said. “Once we’d calmed all the emotion, the theories as to why we’d lost, the drive was there. We weren’t satisfied...
Club and country must ease the burden on the striker who was rushed back from injury for the Champions League final and then unnecessarily taken to PortugalWith one minute gone in England’s Nations League play-off game in Guimarães, Harry Kane did something brilliant. Jordan Pickford launched a hard, flat pass from his own six-yard box. Kane saw it coming, crept back along the line of the centre circle, then executed a kind of cushioned capoeira‑roundhouse layoff into the path of Jesse Lingard.Lingard waited a beat, scanning his options. Kane made the choice for him, surging on ahead, pointing where he wanted the ball, then dinking a brilliantly conceived back-spun chip over Switzerland’s Yann Sommer and on to the crossbar. Related:...
Two long nights in Portugal gave me a new-found respect for pitchside reporters and an extra-time craving for a bananaIt’s the 90th minute. Cristiano Ronaldo, on a hat‑trick, cuts inside his man and whacks it in the corner of the net to seal Portgual’s 3-1 win against Switzerland in the Nations League. I am reporting pitchside for the Australian TV network Optus Sport. What an honour, to witness the second greatest player of the modern era shine so brightly in front of his adoring home support.Except I don’t see it. As Ronaldo strikes the ball, I am sprinting down five flights of concrete steps. There is a lot of concrete in Porto’s stadium and I am surrounded by it. A...
Sterling, in his 58th game of the season, and teammates look jaded against Swiss – they should have been on the beachOn a soporific summer’s day in Guimarães one word reverberated in the mind like a mantra. Why? Why were England playing in one of the more pointless matches in international football history, when they should have been on the beach? Why were they also forced to play extra-time in a third-place playoff rather than going straight to penalties? And why – given all that puff and manpower – did Uefa not even deign them with a medal ceremony? Instead England’s bronze medals were given to them in a bag in their changing room afterwards.That tells you a lot about...
Portugal captain enters Nations League showdown knowing an undying drive cannot sustain his career for ever‘How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!” Cristiano Ronaldo has been accused of many things across his impossibly gilded carer, some more serious than others. But his sheer unbending will remains a remarkable source of strength in his late years. Like Ulysses in the poem, returning home to Ithaca from his glorious travels, there is an element of epic glamour about Ronaldo’s presence as Portugal’s captain in Porto for the Nations League final on Sunday night. Related: Ivan Perisic shows no mercy as Croatia put early dent in Wales’ Euro 2020 hopes Continue reading...