The England manager this week names his squad for Russia and has hinted there will be no major surprisesGareth Southgate has made the sensible decision to name his World Cup squad early, this coming week in fact, perhaps because of his close proximity to the furniture rearranging that took place when Glenn Hoddle trimmed Paul Gascoigne from his list at the last moment in 1998.As Southgate has explained, injuries permitting there is no need to prolong anyone’s agony when you have a couple of weeks to spare and a reasonable idea of the group you would like to select. Better to let everyone know the good or bad news early and give the individuals in the finalised squad as much...
In open rebellion against their manager, France’s 2010 squad self-destructed as Thierry Henry watched impassivelyThierry Henry had more pressing matters to attend to before he could lose himself in his New York dreamscape [he was joining New York Red Bulls from Barcelona in the summer 2010], starting with his uneasy position within the French national team. How uneasy it was was demonstrated in the lead-up to the South African World Cup, when Raymond Domenech chose to play Henry from the bench in France’s warm-up games against Costa Rica and Tunisia, in which the hitherto “captain for life” was a mere passenger.In the first of these two encounters, in which Les Bleus actually showed a surprising degree of enterprise and imagination,...
The Scottish-built boat shuttled Jules Rimet, European teams and Brazil to 1930 World Cup, which ended in a brutal first finalIn April 1923 a new boat sailed out of the shipyards of William Beardmore & Co in Dalmuir, near Glasgow, destined for history. “Italian craftsmen and artists were brought specifically from Florence to carry out the decoration of the first-class saloons,” reported the Times. “The wall of the main staircase bears a huge painting by Cavalieri; the library is in the Tuscan renaissance style, with stained-glass windows and ceiling paintings; and the other public rooms are equally ornate. The wealth of artistic detail everywhere recalls the old-time splendour of an Italian palace.” The boat was built for the Genoese Lloyd...
The French celebrated a historic home victory while the rest of the world wondered what had happened to the previously imperious Ronaldo as he sleepwalked through the finalAs the Brazilian national anthem floated around the Stade de France, the camera kept lingering on one man. His identity was not a surprise. Ronaldo, after all, was the greatest player in the world, O Fenomeno, the star of a Brazil team that was hoping to become the first to retain the World Cup on two separate occasions. Nothing unusual about that, you might think; television prefers to focus on the talent and in 1998, no one was as ferociously talented as Ronaldo, whose supernatural mixture of power, pace and skill had made...
The United States’ joint bid with Canada and Mexico once felt like a lock but it is looking more vulnerable by the day thanks in no small part to the US presidentThirteen months ago when the United States launched a joint bid to host the World Cup with Mexico and Canada at a news conference on the 102nd floor of One World Trade Center, the outcome felt like little more than a formality.There was a compelling proof of concept in USA 94, which set a World Cup attendance record that still stands with nearly 3.6m spectators (for only 52 matches), auguring record-smashing profits for the expanded 48-team, 80-match tournament in 2026. There was a nod toward the fiscally responsible, infrastructure-ready...