With a free role, the No 10 has been the floating brain of his country’s side at this year’s World CupThe thing that made the goal was the touch; one of those touches where Lionel Messi doesn’t so much trap the ball or kill it but lets it come and nestle, falling asleep on his toe like a fond old cat.There were still six more touches to go before the ball would be left spinning, with a kind of purr, in the back of Mat Ryan’s net. But it was the touch that set the clock running, as the ball was looped back out to Messi on the touchline from his own free-kick. Continue reading...
Cissé and his England counterpart have proved adept at blocking out critics back home during the World Cup campaignTake the handbrake off! Unleash this golden generation of attacking players! In a World Cup that has felt at times one tedious Twitter spat about differences of perspective and who has the right to criticise whom, it’s heartening to find some things are reassuringly the same wherever you are.The clamour for Iliman Ndiaye has perhaps not quite been as vociferous as that for James Maddison but Aliou Cissé has been, as the Senegalese newspaper Le Quotidien put it, “heckled daily for his tactical choices, caricatured for his conservatism”. Continue reading...
Leaving another World Cup early has exposed a lack of strategy and order that means Germany no longer always win in the endGary Lineker is no longer right. Football is no longer a game in which Germany win in the end. In Qatar, the big nations have succeeded so far. Only not us; as in the two previous major tournaments, Germany were eliminated early.A pattern can be discerned in the failures of the past four or five years. Germany have lost defensive stability – the team cannot keep anyone away from their goal. Every opponent creates chances, even Costa Rica and (in the only preparation match) Oman. Germany’s game always suffers a break. Continue reading...
Switzerland’s captain provided a freeze-frame history primer of the troubled relationship between Albania, Kosovo and SerbiaMaybe Fifa does have a sense of humour after all. Certainly there was a note of dark comedy in the news, relayed breathlessly over the PA on the final whistle, that the player of the match in this fraught Group E decider was Granit Xhaka.Not that Xhaka didn’t deserve it. He played well in deep midfield on a steamy night at Stadium 974. He controlled the tempo at times. More to the point Xhaka also controlled the noises off, directing the dark energy that must always accompany this fixture with the poise of a veteran conductor. Albeit, a veteran conductor with one hand down his...
Gareth Southgate’s adjusted midfield setup looked strong against Wales but nothing comes easy at a World CupWe may have got a glimpse of Gareth Southgate’s tactics for the knockout stages in the win over Wales on Tuesday. The England head coach changed the central midfield three, removing the attacking role behind Harry Kane to bring in the experienced Jordan Henderson in a deeper position.England will have seen what other teams are doing and how they operate, leaving Southgate to create a plan that could take England through to the final. Brazil, for example, go through the middle of teams and an extra man in central midfield will help counteract that. It worked against Wales, who managed a solitary shot. Continue...