Usually there’s a month off for players to reset but this time it’s just days for those coming off Qatar’s highs and lowsIt is late at night when the four hobbits arrive at the Brandywine Bridge. They are shocked to find it barred and they have to plead with the Shirriffs to let them in. The Shire has changed since they went away, trees chopped down, old buildings swept aside, the inns closed. Sandyman’s Mill has been replaced by an ugly new building, full of noisy machinery that pollutes the air and the river. This is not the homecoming they have dreamed of.Merry blows the horn given him by Éowyn of Rohan and they raise the Shire then scour it...
Argentina deserved to win the World Cup and it was lovely to see Morocco do well but the world’s governing body must learn from the lessonsSo this is it. Qatar 2022 has been and gone and there is a lot to reflect on. In terms of the football it was a great tournament with a great final. Argentina were deserved winners for the way they dominated a large part of the final against France. One could see they were up for it from the start, with their body language, their tackles, their transitions and the way they used the crowd to create energy.And so Lionel Messi got to crown his career with the one trophy he did not have, the...
Argentina’s maestro emulated Diego Maradona in leading his country to the World Cup and complete his collection of titlesLionel Messi completed football here, the greatest story ever told. The 26th and last match of his World Cup journey was the final to end all finals, a moment that’s never been equalled before and probably never will be again. So wild that none of it made any sense until he was standing there waving to the stands smiling, and then it all did. It was hard to comprehend what he and they had gone through – an entire career, the most accomplished of all, packed into one absurd evening – but there was closure at last.It was done. The world had...
Striker exploded into life to drag his side back into the contest – but the madcap game was proof that France’s plan had failedIt was never part of the plan for Didier Deschamps to unveil a gambler’s instinct. France’s manager reads from a pragmatic playbook. When he was putting the finishing touches to his tactical preparations for this contest, Deschamps never could have imagined that Kylian Mbappé would have been standing over a penalty with two minutes of extra-time remaining, readying himself to rescue France for a second time and become the first player to score a hat-trick in a men’s World Cup final since Sir Geoff Hurst in 1966.Everything had spiralled out of control, Argentina’s emotion trumping French cool....
Before Sunday’s World Cup final, the striker has become part of a proud lineage who broke cover on the biggest stageThe oddity of this Argentina side is that it arrived in Qatar having gone 36 games unbeaten and yet has still found itself making it up as it went along. For once there seemed no questions about selection. There were few doubts about how Argentina should play or who should play up front with Lionel Messi, even after the injury to Giovani Lo Celso. There was a sense of stability and a quiet confidence. They had won the Copa América last year. There was no need to change anything. Then they lost to Saudi Arabia.Argentina are habitually poor starters at...