The manager spoke with sound good sense, offering perfectly pitched reasoning for every decision, every close call – to the extent you almost missed the old hysterical jingoismKnow ye by this press conference that we, the FA, consent to the contracting of World Cup squad-ship between our dearly beloved Gareth and his brave 23-man selection. Although obviously not Jack, Joe, Adam or Jonjo who are on this occasion gutted to miss out, but for whom the door is never closed, and all the lads are still very much in the frame going forwards.There was an unavoidable air of ceremony about Gareth Southgate’s World Cup squad camera call on Thursday morning. On a bright, brittle late-spring day Wembley was already hung...
War-torn country’s players travelled to the 1982 tournament as heroes but were shunned on their return after some shockingly gung-ho tactics brought about a 10-1 defeat to HungaryOne of the smaller, yet still very pleasing features of the great 1982 World Cup was that even the goal celebrations had a poetic quality. The joy of successfully channelling a lifetime of aspiration into a single glorious kick has never been better expressed than it was by Marco Tardelli after he scored Italy’s second in the final; the awesome beauty and menace with which Brazil played in the tournament was captured magnificently by Socrates’ mimed volcanic eruption after his exquisite strike against the Soviet Union; and the reaction to Luis Ramírez Zapata’s...
John Stones may count himself fortunate to be in England’s World Cup 23 but the manager has largely remained true to principles he set out just after his appointmentA video has been doing the rounds in the last couple of days showing the moment when Fagner, a defender for Corinthians, is waiting to discover whether he has been named in Brazil’s squad for the World Cup. It is lovely to see. Fagner is with his family – lots of family, mostly wearing that famous yellow kit – but standing apart, listening to the names being announced, one by one, on television. If he looks nervous it is understandable bearing in mind his whole career, at the age of 28, has...
The right-back was unknown, uncapped and unemployed before scoring two monstrous goals – but his fairytale became a cautionary taleIn the summer of 1964, England took part in the Little World Cup in Brazil. It was a simple four-team league involving Portugal, Argentina and the hosts. England finished joint-bottom with Portugal. In their first match they were plugged 5-1 by Brazil in Rio. They commiserated with a night on the town, and were staggering around Copacabana beach the following morning when they were challenged to a game by some local kids.It was an embarrassing mismatch: the England team, two years away from winning the Big World Cup, got absolutely slaughtered for the third time in 18 hours. Admittedly it was...
Jack Wilshere will always have a devoted fan club but injuries have sabotaged his career and only Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s knee ligaments are keeping him in the World Cup pictureCan anyone remember those days when the common assumption about Gareth Southgate was that he was too gentlemanly, too afraid of upsetting people and, ultimately, too damn nice to succeed in an industry where all the people at the top occasionally have to use their elbows?That nonsense stopped being trotted out once Southgate made it a priority to phase out Wayne Rooney, the player around whom England’s national team had been shaped for the previous decade. Theo Walcott found out he had been jettisoned with a telephone call on the morning of...