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| That Phillips lad is decent... |
Wembley is roasting in sunshine and everything is very red. It's so red that it's a bit uncomfortable to look at. The BBC interview Harry Kane on a shit chair in some long grass which makes him and the interviewer look like they're a holidaying couple on the Norfolk Broads sat on a towpath. Alan Shearer answers questions by giving suspicious looking side eyes. Possibly he's eyeing up Gary Lineker's glasses. It really does look as if he's gone to specsavers and asked for 'a set of spectacles your nan might have worn in the early 1990s please.' Lampard's eyes harden as Tommy Tuchel gets mentioned. Rio continues not to age.
It looks to me, with an untrained eye, as if we've set up not to lose, or to at least, not to be losing by the time we've brought the good players on. I mean, obviously, they're all good players and that, but it's hardly the most exciting line up the world has ever seen, it's hard to see a collection of defensive midfielders and out of position full backs producing a gung ho fearless display. Bring back Kevin Keegan.
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Croatia's kit looks a bit like something a motocross rider would wear. On the pitch, they look somewhat incongruous in anoraks in 28 degrees and blue sky. The anthems are sung with spectacular tunelessness by both sets of players with the England lads really going for it by being out of time as well. As England link arms and stand together, they look, in the best possible way, like a right motley crue of Bash Street kids all different heights and daft haircuts. I'm still sulking cos Grealish isn't playing but then again, Foden is and it's hardly Geoff Thomas and Carlton Palmer is it?
The knee is observed with a noise. The nature of the noise is probably going to be dissected endlessly but neither the Third Reich nor the Bolshevik revolution are evoked . Once we're off the shadow and sun makes it feel like it's being played abroad. Foden starts by losing the ball. Trippier by running into someone. Sterling tries a little spin. He loses the ball. He tackles someone, wins the ball, tries another turn and loses the ball. Croatia have a spell, Modric glides through the England defence but the referee pulls play back, which seems a bit unfair as he was obstructing Modric if he was impeding anyone.
Then Sterling dead centre, slides it to Foden, he takes a few strides forward and he plants it hard, against the base of the post. That really was the ghost of Gazza... England are coming forward again, a double penalty shout as Mount is challenged but sets Sterling free, here he goes, the ball doesn't quite get out from under his feet and he's tackled. From the corner, Philips hits a volleyed drive from distance, through a crowded box and another save.
England have Croatia rattled. England are playing the press well. Foden's Gazza hair makes me nervous whenever he goes into a challenge, just as Gazza made me nervous but the lad seems to be pretty disciplined in a way that Gazza, all untamed and wild magic, never did. I struggle for a reference point for Philip's hair until I realise it reminds me of Cobi Jones. Sterling always reminds me of a dressage pony the way he prances on the ball with his bum stuck out. Every time I watch Kane it takes me 5 minutes to remember he is much better than he looks like he is.
Philips makes a great tackle on the edge of the box, sliding, winning the ball, springing up and shooting in one fluid movement. The keeper dives and palms it away, the ref whistles. It wouldn't have counted, but it's lovely football and I really like the look of him. Sterling suddenly has space in the box and it looks like he might shoot, but he checks back and lifts it to the far post where it's bundled away.
Croatia gift another chance. Pickford takes a goal kick, looking as he always does, like an overwound clockwork toy going a bit too quickly. It's a nice ball into the channel, it's nodded out. Trippier takes a throw and Sterling is suddenly shooting from 25 yards. It's high and wide, but it was weirdly easy. A long punt, a quick throw and a clear sight of goal without really trying.
The game dies down. Walker passes it out of play for no apparent reason. Croatia have a few attacks, a few wonky crosses that cause no real alarm and some running at the defence that whilst players go down, doesn't draw a whistle. Pickford takes another goal kick with so much effort he nearly falls over. Walker is gifted a chance to play a key pass by a sublime touch from Foden who leaps, kills the ball with his toe in the way only a real magician ever can and touches off to Walker, but he overhits the return pass. Sterling runs through the middle, tries to thread Foden through but the bleached one is squeezed out.
Mings hoofs it up to Sterling. This simplicity again shouldn't work, but it does as Sterling causes undue fear and the Croatia man handles right on the edge of the box. There's a big build up but Kieran Trippier hammers it into the wall.
Halftime comes with the strange spectacle of no added time at all. When does that ever happen?
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Decent enough. The only player I thought really didn't look on their game was Walker whose use of the ball was notably poor. I don't know these players well at all as I don't really watch anything other than Blackpool and the random other games that are on normal telly like Scottish second tier football, but I liked the look of Phillips who seems to combine bite and some forward thinking play, I thought Foden is worth the hype and Trippier is a dilemma. He's got delivery to die for but once or twice, him having to switch feet slowed the play.
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Croatia start with a bit more verve. There's a shithouse tackle on Mount and a few forays forward, the most threatening of which causes Pickford to hare out and belt it away. England have an attack, but it breaks down and they pass it all the way back instead. Croatia put a neat move together that culminates in Modric driving from miles out, Pickford stopping it easily enough, but a moment which suggests England's dominance of the first half is over. The crowd restlessly singing for Jack Grealish sums up a lot about how the
No sooner have I thought this, then England score and it's the lad who needs a goal in a game like this more than anyone. Phillips runs onto a ball from the full back position, cuts inside, his physical strength carrying through a tackle and taking him to the edge of the box, before he slips a divine pass into the path of Sterling who has just the keeper to beat, and he does, the ball hitting the goalie but bouncing on into the net.
Sterling turns prompter, playing a diagonal to set Mount away wide who quickly turns it across goal, gain charges in, makes contact close in, the keeper and a defender charge, the ball is goes over and Kane clatters into the post.
Memories of Gazza are stirred again as the talismanic blonde gets a soft booking. Sterling takes the piss, beating one, but then gets cleaned out. The ref isn't interested. Croatia create a bit of jeopardy, a cross nodded out leads to a snapshot that pinballs out again, to Kovacic who shapes up dangerously and shanks it wide from inside the box. As Croatia go forward, chances to break emerge and Mount runs down the middle with plays streaming up to join him. He's pulled down on the edge of the D, gets up and curls the free kick an inch or two over.
As Croatia make a couple of changes, I decide their kit looks less like a motocross shirt and more like the sort of thing Kwikfit might make the lad in the office who does the card machine wear. They have a corner. Modric takes it, making it float like only the best players can and Brozovic meets it on the volley but hammers it well, well wide.
Foden comes off. I was hoping to say 'Gazza's hair is off and Gazza's feet comes on' as I fully expect to see Grealish jog on, but it isn't him after all. Rashford is the man instead, a sub presumably designed to take advantage of the chance to break. Croatia fashion a bit more attack and as much as I was critical of Walker in the first half, he twice is brilliant under pressure, once a header he ran onto himself and cleared, the second a brilliant bit of shielding, where it might have been easier to panic and challenge that allows Pickford to claim.
A free kick into the box, Mings pulls away past the far post and nods it back. Sterling has an age to line up the shot but he hammers it a mile over. Oh Raheem. Croatia start back attacking and the game fals into another lull, they work it around, probing, but not really threatening. The crowd is flat again. For one that measures over double the play off final attendance, it's half as passionate. The ball keeps going into the right hand corner but England keep winning it back and clearing. It's really less tense than you'd expect.
Jude Bellingham isn't Jack Grealish either but he's an exciting sub, proving he's not simply the new Theo Walcott and is here to be used. Kane goes off having run hard and led the line. I like Harry Kane a lot, largely because he looks like a footballer from the past. If you lined up Tommy Lawton and Wilf Mannion and shoved Kane between them, you'd never notice he was out of his era.
Bellingham isn't shy of a challenge is my first impression of him. Sterling also impresses defensively. There's a nasty moment when Bellingham has clash of heads and lies flat on his back receiving treatment. He's fine in the end, but it had echoes of last night for a split second. Sterling is replaced by DCL, which means with him and Rashform up front England are going for a really leggy 'big shorts' look. Bellingham makes another terrific tackle. Walker shows composure again to tidy up a dicy moment.
The seconds tick away. Croatia have a throw, it's launched long, it's nodded away but falls to a black and grey checkerboard shirt. The lad swivels and hits it... but it's high into the stands.
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A really impressive start by England overall. They restricted Croatia to a few long shots and aimless crosses and maintained an attacking threat for quite a lot of the game. It was obvious from the outset that the plan was to restrict the opposition but impressive how they a) carried that out and b) showed more ambition than I feared they might having seen the team sheet.
Sunburnt men have their tops off in front of their flags singing songs from 25 years ago. Sterling has come good. The kids look decent. Pickford didn't go mad. Let the wild and inevitably misplaced optimism begin!
utmp
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