Promising but let’s not get carried away
AWIN is a win, and a win in the first game of a major tournament is never a bad thing, but there were several areas of concern as England deservedly beat Croatia at Wembley last Sunday. I will never be entirely comfortable with a right back playing on the left and while Kieran Trippier had a good game covering Tyrone Mings, surely at some point Ben Chillwell or Luke Shaw will take that position, while Trippier vies with Kyle Walker and Reece James for the right back spot. My man of the match was Kalvin Phillips, who will hopefully keep Jordan Henderson out of the side, while Declan Rice complemented him well in defensive midfield. This midfield set-up, however, creates problems further forward: Darren Barton, whose knowledge of football I really respect (he tipped West Ham for relegation last season but nobody’s perfect), nailed it when he pointed out that with Mason Mount sticking close to Sterling out wide there was nobody who could make the transition from defence to attack, as epitomised by the peerless Luka Modric for Croatia.
This led to Harry Kane dropping back, meaning there was no target man up top. It’s one thing for him to do this at Spurs, where he has players making forward runs ahead of him, but with Sterling and Phil Foden sticking to their respective inverted touchlines it’s not going to work for England. Hopefully as (if) England progress further, these anomalies will be eradicated but I’m not holding my breath.
Not a good look
Last night (Friday) viewers watching the game on TV, plus those present at Wembley, were due to be presented with the mortifying spectacle of the England football team kneeling down in apparent supplication to their Scottish opponents who, unwittingly or not, would have been deemed to be lapping up this apparent acknowledgement of their superiority.
Obviously I exaggerate, but people not aware of the absurd taking the knee rubbish would clearly have been amused, confused, and in some cases mortified at the spectacle unfolding before them at, of all occasions, a football match between the two original footballing rivals. It clearly would not have been a good optic, but the Scots bailed out England by deciding to also take the knee in a one-off gesture to show solidarity with their compatriots south of the border. Gareth Southgate and his bosses at the FA were let off the hook last night but need to take a long hard look at themselves, because somehow I don’t think making English football a laughing stock in support of a Marxist organisation is in their remit. Or is it part of a grand plan? Who knows!
And then we have this
“I support England. England is by many objective measures a terrible country ruled by terrible people with a terrible past and a terrifying future, and I support England.” Speaking personally, I would have replaced the three terribles with, in order, beautiful, incompetent possibly corrupt, and proud, but that’s only my opinion. Sports writer Jonathan Liew (origin unknown, but not English) has his and, as he writes for The Guardian and previously for The Independent, clearly has a personal agenda and should be cancelled immediately, thereby confirming the “terrifying” part of his rant.
The heart of the matter
Last Friday evening millions of football fans the world over held their collective breath as Denmark’s Christian Eriksen lay prone on the turf at Copenhagen’s Parken stadium, as medics desperately sought to bring him round after what seemed like a cardiac “event”. Eventually he came to and was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced as stable and responding well. There’s little doubt that his in-game collapse was cardiac-related, and immediately the focus was put on his recent workload during the past year where a seasonand-a-half’s football was essentially condensed into a little over 13 months, with no downtime due to the ridiculous international breaks that are a part of every top player’s life. But it’s not that simple, for Eriksen, while he was with Spurs, was one of the top three fittest players in the Premier League in terms of minutes played and yards run per game, though since he moved to Inter he spent the first half of the season just ended on the bench so his workload was relatively low. Ultimately no-one could have seen this coming and it’s almost certain that we won’t see Eriksen on a football field again, which is a real shame because on his day he was wonderful to watch and a major part of Mauricio Pochettino’s gloriously entertaining Spurs, as well as being his national team’s best player.
This week’s games
Euro 2020 Today Group F, 4pm: Hungary v France; 7pm: Portugal v Germany. Tomorrow, Group A 7pm: Italy v Wales, Switzerland v Turkey. Monday Group C, 7pm: North Macedonia v Netherlands, Ukraine v Austria. Group B, 10pm: Finland v Belgium, Russia v Denmark. Tuesday, Group D 10pm: Croatia v Scotland, Czech Republic v England. Wednesday Group E 7pm: Slovakia v Spain, Sweden v Poland. Group F 10pm: Germany v Hungary, Portugal v France.
Anyone for tennis?
So it’s been confirmed that despite the entire UK continuing to be kept under lock and key courtesy of all those unelected Marxist behavioural science boffins, (think Pavlov’s dog) wee Krankie, the Welsh nonentity, and useless Boris, Wimbledon finals weekend will play out in front of a capacity centre court crowd.
Meanwhile at around the same time the Euro 2020 semifinals and final will be played at Wembley but the attendances will be capped at 45,000, or 50 per cent of capacity. Doesn’t it warm the cockles of your heart that the great and the not so good (no doubt including some of the above) will be permitted to enjoy their Pimms and strawberries and cream while fans of the most popular spectator sport in the world will still be treated as lepers.
And finally
Last week’s question: 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? The first five footballing greats featured in a special edition set of Royal Mail stamps, while Roy of the Rovers had his own single edition stamp in 2012. Fanatical philatelist and all-round anorak John Grundey unsurprisingly came up trumps with his first class answer. This week: what happened in last week’s Euro 2020 game between England and Croatia that hadn’t happened since 1992?
Watching the National League play-off semi-final between Stockport and Hartlepool, I was struck firstly by how enjoyable the game actually was, especially with no VAR to muck things up, and secondly how invested and enthusiastic the home and away supporters were. That said, I was just a wee bit disappointed that no-one from Hartlepool had had the wit to display a banner saying Monkey Lives Matter!
Apropos of nothing I just happened to be perusing a newspaper photo of the XR mob protesting at the G7 summit last week; which was how I found myself marveling at the shirt one of the tree hugging anti any kind of transport etc was wearing which had emblazoned across the chest the words FLY EMIRATES. The fact that he was a Gooner was the icing on the cake.
YOUNG fitness athletes from the TRNC claimed success at an international event in Serbia. The girls and boys, from the Nev Children’s Fitness Team, grabbed a haul of medals in a range of categories at the International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness (IFBB) World Children
Fitness Championship. The event was held in the town of Cacak from June 11 to June 13. The results included a first place for Coşkun Taşt Ateş, and third place finishes for Armin Tuğberk, Aren Mustafa Tantura and Funda Özberkan.