Henderson shows again he is England captain in all but name
THAT’S PAINFUL!
MARCUS RASHFORD missed two glorious chances as England failed to take revenge on Croatia for their summer World Cup heartbreak.
But manager Gareth Southgate — who also saw Eric Dier and Harry Kane hit the woodwork — believes his team reinforced their position as an emerging international force.
Inside an empty stadium — because of a Croatia fan ban — England missed the opportunity to record a first UEFA Nations League win.
Southgate insisted: ‘ They’re hugely proud to play in the shirt. We talked just before the game (about the empty stadium). But good teams adapt. Good
Rashford misses two sitters as England fluff lines on eerie night
THIS was indeed surreal. In a vain bid to create some atmosphere, the England kitman tried to hang a flag behind the goal, complete with a tribute to his beloved West Brom, only for a steward to make him take it down.
UEFA also insisted on issuing a request to supporters already excluded for racism to refrain from using racist and discriminatory language.
When the two teams were then read out by the stadium announcer, the silence that even met names like Modric and Rakitic was decidedly strange.
As was the sight of Greg Clarke, the FA chairman, booming out a national anthem for once not ruined by a tiresome blast of ‘no surrender’. Clarke clearly felt comfortable in his surroundings, in a stadium that had a large ‘for sale’ sign outside.
By then, the two teams had emerged to light applause and when the players performed their customary handshakes you could hear the slapping of English and Croatian palms.
An England fan who had been turned away after trying to gain access to the stadium by posing as a steward caused a bit of a stir. But not until this encounter had actually started did it become apparent that a small gathering of diehard away supporters had taken Rijeka’s answer to Henman Hill — surely Mason Mount?
Through the darkness, one could just about make out an England flag and a sprinkling of England shirts.
The 20 or so who were thought to be up there did their best. A quick blast of ‘**** off UEFA, we go where we want’ was followed by a slightly more amusing chant of ‘your support is ****ing s**t’. But this was not a wall of sound that was going to make it a less stressful evening for the television directors fearful of the occaopportunity. sional ‘f-bomb’.
The first audible one was dropped after 15 minutes from what appeared to be a member of an England defence that had been reorganised by Gareth Southgate into a back four.
Prior to the game, someone said Jordan Henderson had something of a reputation for liberal use of industrial language when in the heat of battle and so it proved — the Liverpool skipper at one stage enquiring whether Croatia manager Zlatko Dalic was actually ‘the ****ing ref’.
What quickly became apparent was just how influential a figure Henderson is in this England team. He is by far the most vocal and certainly more communicative than the comparatively subdued Harry Kane.
In fact, as this game progressed Henderson seemed to be England captain in all but name.
The referee addressed him as ‘Jordan’, Southgate’s first audible words were ‘well done Hendo’ and when the midfielder received a booking that rules him out of Monday’s match in Spain, it felt costly because he was running the show.
‘Jordan is a leader,’ said Southgate afterwards. ‘ When you’re pressing the way we want to press, he often sets that trigger.’
Henderson’s efforts were all the more valuable given how flat this felt as an occasion — a goalless, largely soulless training exercise of a match with about as much atmosphere as a Sunday League encounter.
‘Keep it going, it’s good,’ cried Southgate, only to see Marcus Rashford squander a marvellous There are other strong personalities in this young England side, of course. Jordan Pickford is not shy and nor is John Stones. He turned the air blue when Rashford was hacked down.
England were actually playing rather well, enjoying the better of the chances against a side that had denied them a place in the World Cup final only three months earlier. As second-half performances go, it was certainly an improvement on Moscow.
‘We can see you sneaking out,’ the male voice choir on the hill declared, prompting a ripple of laughter down below.
But quite how effective this is as a form of punishment is hard to say, even if it must be a huge source of embarrassment for any country to be made to play an international fixture behind closed doors. Not to mention expensive if the national federation relies on match-day revenue.
The situation that led to this sanction and the reasons why a football pitch was decorated with a Nazi swastika are, of course, complicated. Certainly it is unlikely to be UEFA who resolve the issues that remain for a country that have been serial offenders.
‘The atmosphere is not easy for anybody and it’s kind of sad for football,’ said Dalic.
Here two teams simply tried to make a contest out of a difficult situation, while Jadon Sancho made the most uncelebrated of England debuts. Still, when the request came from on high for a wave, Pickford raised a glove. Rightly so, given the efforts those fans had made to see a match memorable only for their exclusion.
MATT LAWTON Chief Sports Reporter