While all this was fun and frolic in the capital’s political circus, a portion of the roof of the house I rented also collapsed. This would mean that we would now have to get it repaired, first by applying plaster of Paris and then by painting it. Alas, I will have to spend some time watching the paint dry, an activity I am looking forward to, because nothing can be more boring than watching it. England In this euro 2024,
While most neutrals and even English-minded people are looking at England’s pedantic performance with disdain, football’s basement strategists, who spend all their time in their mother’s basement playing Football Manager, calculating xG and arguing about the benefits of inside forwards over traditional wingers, may be realising that there is a way Gareth Southgate‘This seems like madness.
Football comes in many different forms.
As Jose Mourinho explained to Ted Lasso in a football commercial, there are different types of football.
Jose Mourinho explains football to a shocked Ted Lasso
Sometimes you have ball possession based tiki-taka, trying to pass the ball at the last moment before scoring.
Then you have the Champions League-winning counter-attack, with its quick transitions that usually leave Carlo Ancelotti wagging his eyebrows.
You
Gegenpressing
– popularised by former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp – which focuses on counter-pressing to counter counter-attacks.
Then you have the Italian style, which is about beating the defense to death, or as Mourinho preferred when he still had a bit of footballing heritage: parking the bus.
In the old days in England – when they had a queen rather than a king – you used to play an aerial style of ball where you threw the ball to a tall centre forward and hoped for the best, leading former Champions League-winning manager Brian Clough to say with disdain: “If God wanted us to play football in the clouds, he would have planted grass there.”
You had the Busby era of simple football where you would win the ball, pass the ball, and score a goal and then not give it a fancy name.
Total Football or in its native Dutch
TotalVoeTball
The emphasis was on a style of play where every player on the pitch could play the role of another player. This meant that defenders could play the role of a forward and vice versa, with Johan Cruyff being its most famous proponent.
But what we’ve seen under Gareth Southgate is quite the opposite: Total non-football,
Total non-football relies on forwards not being able to attack, defenders not being able to defend and midfielders wandering around aimlessly. It relies on beating the opponent to death before knocking them out. In retrospect, it’s a tactical masterclass, a Trojan horse trick that’s absolutely perfect
The Iliad.
Play in a way that you are so oblivious – as if you were inspired by a Laurie and Fry skit – that you put the opposition in a state of total disarming before hitting them with a one-two. This is the football equivalent of the famous rope-a-dope trick that Muhammad Ali used against George Foreman in The Rumble in the Jungle, in which Ali would wait on the ropes until his opponent was tired before knocking him down.
Total non football
It’s a tactic England employed to great effect against Slovakia, scoring in the 25th minute.th For a minute they thought they were leading, as nothing suggested the English players were capable of scoring, or even wanted to.
harry kaneKane, who appears to be suffering from Tottenham-itis after scoring 44 goals for Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga this season and yet failing to win a single trophy, looked understandably disappointed. It is not quite clear whether Gareth Southgate wants him to play as a No. 9, No. 10 or a hybrid. It seems Kane has decided to answer this question by not playing football at all.
Phil Foden, the Premier League’s best player, was forced to play on the left instead of his preferred right, making him suddenly look like a lost centrist who felt as besieged as France’s new politics. He seemed to have either never watched football before in his life or forgotten his basic programming that Pep Guardiola had coded.
Jude Bellingham, La Liga Player of the Season, after winning the Champions League and La Liga with Real Madrid, where he scored 23 goals. Zinedine ZidaneKnown as a No. 5 player, he seemed to have no idea what to do with the ball once it was in his hands, or even if it was worth passing to players at all.
Behind them Declan Rice, who had performed brilliantly at Arsenal, was strolling along like a Bengali who had eaten a large portion of his favourite cereal at lunch and was being forced to work when he would rather take a long nap dreaming about the collective actions of Karl Marx.
Kieran Tripper, playing on the left rather than his preferred right, was continually stuck in defence and made little contribution to the attack before going off with an injury.
John Stones, who had been assured under Pep Guardiola, was careless and clueless.
Strangely, the only player who seemed like he cared about it was young Koby Mainu who still seemed excited by the idea of wearing an England shirt, which somehow didn’t feel like a proverbial albatross around his neck.
England failed to hit a single shot on target until the 95th minute.th Minutes later, when all hope was lost, and Gareth Southgate was about to embrace Godot, Kyle Walker unleashed a long ball that Guehi headed to no one in particular, which Bellingham volleyed in a classic bicycle kick to make it 1-1. It was the most recent goal England had scored in injury time in any tournament. A minute later in extra time, Harry Kane scored with a header and from there, England won the match and will face Switzerland in the quarter-finals.
Now many will claim that this was pure luck, but true football connoisseurs will realise the masterstroke we witnessed. The truth is that since Gareth Southgate came to power – thanks to Big Sam Allardyce’s tendency to tell the truth when he drinks – the England team has tried to play well and win. This has seen them reach the semi-finals of the World Cup and the final of previous Euros, but they have always fallen short before the final hurdle. A mediocre player who was vilified for missing a spot-kick against Argentina in the 1998 penalty shootout, the English media – as they look for a potential white saviour – present him as some sort of messiah who can pull the sword out of the stone. The fact is that England have done better in terms of results under Southgate – than under all previous coaches except Sir Alf Ramsey. Southgate’s teams have reached the semi-finals of the World Cup and the final of the Euros before losing. He has won more knockout games than all the coaches before him. They have done so by playing a pragmatic style of play that focuses on defense first. But perhaps, it’s time to not play at all and win. Because sports, like life, is a random brutality. The best team doesn’t always win.
Paddy Power and the Scots 😆 #Scotland #PaddyPower
In their cult hit in 1981, British punk rock band The Clash asked: “Should I stay, or should I go?” Every single football fan – neutral, Western European, Balkan, and especially the Irish, Scots and Welsh, and everyone watching around the world – wants England to go. But, Southgate and company have so far refused to do so.
Perhaps, this is the appointment of his opponents to Samarra. This is often called the oldest story in the world, Appointment in Samara This is a short story about a young servant who bumps into Death in a market in Baghdad. The frightened servant borrows a horse from his master and sets off for Samarra. Later, the master bumps into the same figure and asks why he threatened his servant and Death tells him: “That was no threatening gesture. It was only the beginning of the surprise. I was surprised to see him in Baghdad, because I had an appointment to meet him in Samarra tonight.” Who knows, maybe England’s opponents in the Euro tournament have an appointment in Samarra. And it’s with Gareth Southgate and his boring English team.
