Who’ll play in Euro 2020?
SELECTED games today 4pm; Wales vs Switzerland. Tomorrow 4pm; England vs Croatia. Monday 4pm; Scotland vs Czech Republic. Wednesday 7pm; Turkey vs Wales. 10pm; Italy vs Switzerland. Friday 7pm; Czech Republic vs Croatia. 10pm; England vs Scotland.
Putting aside the fact that France are far and away the best side in the competition and will almost certainly win the thing, let’s concentrate on England and Scotland. As I type, I have no idea what side Gareth Southgate will put out tomorrow. The only certainties are that Jordan Pickford and Harry Kane will definitely play and in all probability Declan Rice will cover our totally inadequate central defenders. I wouldn’t be too surprised if he plays a back three, which would almost certainly mean another holding midfielder, either Henderson or Leed’s Philips joining Rice in that covering role. If that happens then one possibly two of Mason Mount, Phil Foden, and Jack Grealish will be on the bench. Will they be able to see off an ageing Croatia? I’m not sure and would probably take a draw. Scotland, on the other hand, can’t lose whatever their results: if this completion hadn’t been diluted by Uefa, then they wouldn’t be here so they’re under no pressure and can just enjoy the ride.
To the Scots only one game really matters and that is of course Friday’s match against the
auld enemy. As a veteran of many Wembley and Hampden clashes, I’m really looking forward to this one and I think the current crop of Jocks have the tools to give this one a good go. In particular their left wing combination of Premier League left backs Andrew Robertson and Kieran Tierney are more than capable of giving the English defenders a torrid time and we can expect to see plenty of juicy crosses coming in to test our less than stellar centre halves. But if (and it’s a big if) Southgate lets loose his multi-talented attackers then England should still come out on top.
Stop it now
“Gareth Southgate was angered by England fans booing while the England players were taking the knee prior to the fixture with Austria.” He later said “they seem to think it’s a political stand that they don’t agree with, it’s not.” No s*** Sherlock. What they want Gareth is having paid their hard earned money to watch football they don’t need or want the occasion to be sullied by what is most definitely a political stand. They’re also fed up with being treated as Neanderthal bottom feeders because they don’t have the same sad outlook on life as Guardian-reading metropolitans who consider anyone with a different viewpoint to be worthless. If he thinks what happened at Middlesbrough,
where 8,000 were in attendance, I shudder to think how he’ll feel when (if) there’s 80,000 at Wembley.
And then there’s this gem
Quote in the Guardian on the above subject: “Booing an antiracism gesture makes you an anti-anti-racist. The shorthand for this is you are a racist.” Say no more.
Oops
It’s a meaningless friendly against Romania and England “earn” a penalty, you’ve played 58 times for England without looking like scoring, Harry Kane’s not playing and you’re wearing the captain’s armband so you pull rank over the nominated spot kick taker, and then the keeper saves it. It seems safe to say that Jordan Henderson won’t be allowed anywhere near any spot kicks in the foreseeable future. (Henderson was also the only player to miss in the 2018 shootout against Colombia.)
Over the pond
When Jon Rahm walked off the 18th last Saturday leading Big Jack’s Memorial tournament at Big Jack’s Muirfield Village golf course, he must have been feeling inwardly pretty good as he contemplated his six-shot lead with just one round to go. Then a PGA official stopped the Spaniard on the fringe and informed him that he had tested positive for Covid and was being withdrawn from the tournament. He’ll probably not miss the 1.5 million quid he was almost certain to have won but, like me, no doubt he’ll ponder the fact that the “disease” was so debilitating that he was able to hold sway over 143 other entrants, all of whom were pronounced healthy.
US Open
Torrey Pines California, Thursday through Sunday. After my failure to even mention Phil Mickelson when offering my players to watch at last month’s USPGA, I’ve given up making predictions. However, if I were a betting man, I would be looking at Jon Rahm, Hideki Matsuyama, Collin Morikawa, Justin Rose, and yes, Phil Mickelson.
While we’re on the subject…
Speaking of elite golf, last week at CMC, which was hosting the annual Efes competition, a chap who hails from Middlesbrough with the initials GP and plays off a handicap of 42 scored a remarkable zero points off his first nine holes and promptly withdrew.
To me the strangest thing about all of this is the fact that the player in question managed this “score” without losing any balls or taking any air shots. Amazing.
And finally
Last week I asked which England ex-manager has managed no fewer than five clubs that he also played for? Step forward Sam Allardyce. Big Sam has managed and played for the following: Bolton, Sunderland, Preston (caretaker) Limerick, (player-manager) and last season West Brom. This week: in 1996 where could you find Dixie Dean, Bobby Moore, Duncan Edwards, Billy Wright, and Danny Blanchflower? Bonus: in the same vein where in 2012 could Roy Race be found?
How much?
A good friend of ours got his Lapta water bill for last month and was a tad perturbed to see that he had apparently used 9,735 tonnes of the stuff and that Lapta Belediyesi would like him to pay 57,512.59TL for said usage. Obviously something was amiss here and being the big totally non-threatening (sarcasm alert) affable Geordie that he is, off he went to the water department where he was offered profuse apologies and the bill was quite rightly amended to the correct amounts. Personally I think he was lucky because another friend of mine got a bill last summer for roughly four times the expected amount, and when he went and queried it the department wouldn’t budge unless he could prove he hadn’t used the amount in question, which obviously being a genuinely non-threatening southerner he couldn’t do and had to pay up. Still, he’s a Gooner so fairs fair.