Sport Southgate is doing his homework
England manager Gareth Southgate has already started doing his homework on World Cup rivals Panama.
Southgate said following the draw on December 1 that he knew “a lot less about” Panama and Tunisia compared to his knowledge of group top seeds Belgium, who feature a host of Premier League stars.
And in the week that has passed since England learned their Russia 2018 opponents, he has been checking out footage of the Panama team, who qualified from the CONCACAF region at the expense of sides including the United States.
“Sadly yes, that is the sort of thing I do in the evening,” Southgate said.
“In terms of the draw, there is always the possibility that you walk away in a group with Brazil and Sweden who are two teams we’ve struggled forever to play against so the draw gives us a good chance, it’s up to us.
“Everybody knows that against those two teams in particular (Panama and Tunisia) we will be favourites to win and we have to live with that.”
England will begin their World Cup challenge against Tunisia on June 18 in Volgograd, before tackling Panama in Nizhny Novgorod on June 24.
They finish the group campaign against Belgium on June 28 in Kaliningrad. Gareth Southgate Sir Bradley Wiggins will be a novice at the scene of some of his many successes when he returns to competition today. The 37-year-old five-time Olympic cycling champion is slated to compete in the elite men’s two-kilometres event at the British Rowing Indoor Championships at the LeeValley Velodrome.
Wiggins in June 2015 set the hour record at the 2012 Olympic velodrome and in March 2016 won the world Madison title there with Mark Cavendish.
The 2012 Tour de France winner’s most recent prior competitive appearance on British soil came in the London Six Day event at the venue in October 2016. He retired from cycling two months later.
Wiggins turned to rowing for fitness, having long admired the sport, and in June raised the prospect of competing at a sixth Olympics in Tokyo 2020, but this time in a boat.
An endorsement from James Cracknell this week should come as no surprise, given the two-time Olympic rowing champion is a friend of Wiggins and has mentored him. Cracknell says Wiggins, who will be 40 by Tokyo 2020, is worth a gamble by the British team, while his flirtation with the sport has undoubtedly raised its profile.
Wiggins has a long history with the site where he will compete today, as it was the location for the Eastway road cycling circuit where he took part in some of his first races as a junior.
Jean Todt has been re-elected unopposed for a third term as president of motor racing’s governing body the FIA.
Todt, 71, took over from Englishman Max Mosley as FIA president in 2009 and will now remain at the helm of the sporting federation until the end of 2021.