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| A lovely butterfly I saw on a walk yesterday. Cos it's soothing. |
— daysofspeed (@daysofspeed) July 11, 2021
England like most places is soup. There’s cunts, clowns, crooks, chancers bobbing about next to heroes, decency, kindness, cheer, laughter & love navigating around spite, pain & misery. Be good, be kind, try & find some happy. Pouring bad news into your nut will bend it.
The highlight of the build up is Lampard, Shearer, Lineker and Ferdinand explaining that they were all just as likable as this England team, just no one knew it because they didn't have twitter. There's a barmy light show where actual magic happens and then some lad from Portugal carries the cup out with the solemnity of a pallbearer.
There's the traditional and moving folk ritual booing of the opposition anthem which is, as everyone knows is a particular banger this time. Chiellini, of course, looks like he's having the time of his life, like he's playing a game on a holiday tour with his Sunday league club after a right good knees up in a nightclub last night. England look very serious about the whole thing. Mancini sips his water, then grimaces. Maybe someone had a wee in it for mind games? The car. Oh, the little car. How we will miss the little car.
We're off.
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Harry Maguire gets us off to a great start, passing it out of play for a corner for no apparent reason. England's legendary team spirit is apparent as Maguire blames Pickford and Pickford blames Maguire. The corner is easily cleared. Kane has it on the half way line, he plays a beautiful diagonal, Trippier takes it, he composes himself with a little touch out of his feat, like a solo violinist about to launch on a virtuoso demonstration playing a quick note first to check the tuning, then he crosses, and what a ball it is, drifting over everyone, and falling perfectly at the far post for Shaw, who absolutely buries it, first time, driving it low and hard, almost through the near post.
Then the rest of the game is a mush in my head. Sterling floats past people a few times, but bounces of the final man or overruns it. Declan Rice has some quality galloping runs, he looks like he would be at home playing for Derby County in 1963, such is his sturdy running style. England don't really threaten a lot at all. Stones stretches and can't meet a cross. Someone heads it just over. Phillips has a couple of efforts from distance that don't get that close. Close enough for me to go 'oooh' but then far enough away for me to feel a bit silly when the replay is shown.
The Italians start really slowly. The goal doesn't seem to shake them up for a good twenty minutes. England look to have this sewn up. Slowly, but surely, their class begins to assert itself. When they finally start passing, they can't find the final ball, but they do manage a couple of moves where they knock it about for ages. They're forcing England backwards, slowly, compressing them into flat lines, reducing their ability to play out because if and when England win it, everyone's in the defensive shape and there's nowhere to go.
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Second half is more of the same, only the Italians look more threatening, putting chances on the end of their possession. When they do score, it felt like it was coming. Pickford nearly saves it, he makes a quite brilliant reflex stop from the first effort, but Bonnuci can't miss with the rebound and Pickford wafts at air as the ball goes past him. He's terrific tonight, making a mockery of people who wanted him dropped because they didn't like the vibe he gave off against Denmark. Whilst the abuse of the black players is something that deserves to be met with a lump of wood, it's also notable how many people seem perfectly happy to dismiss Pickford (an obsessively hard working pro who clearly thinks about his game) as 'a thick chav' as if that somehow is a legitimate opinion on goalkeeping.
Once Italy score, there really doesn't look to be a way back in for England. Saka and Henderson don't make a huge amount of difference. Saka isn't at his best, that mesmeric magnetic quality of his dribbling isn't quite their, the ball doesn't quite roll for him and the one time he gets the rub of the green, Chiellini just reaches out and pulls his shirt then gives everyone a lesson in pragmatically accepting his booking with a matter of fact shrug. Henderson runs about pressing but not really doing anything that Rice wasn't already doing.
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Extra time and finally Grealish comes on. He runs with it, his close control is switched on. England fashion a few chances and I wonder what world were in where we take football so seriously that we don't pick the best attacking player in case he loses the ball. I read a glowing tribute to Jorginho on twitter, then 30 seconds later he decapitates Grealish.
For a lot of the match I watch Chiellini. How does a bloke with no real pace play so well? It's really striking that in the first half, he's under pressure and losing the battle against Kane and looking worried about Sterling, but from about 25 minutes, he's usually to be seen just inside England's half, just stroking the ball to someone else, comfortable with either foot and reading the game incredibly well. England cant get at him at all, and when they do, usually via Sterling, his timing is something else, an extra time interception deep inside his own box is particularly notable for the absolute precision of the tackle, giving Sterling no chance of either emerging with the ball or any reason to leave his feat. It's like a dad allowing his little kid to dribble about then flicking the ball from him at will.
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Penalties seem somehow inevitable. Italy go first and that has a 60:40 advantage. Italy win 3-2 and the success rate is 60:40. Shit happens. I've had enough. I've written 175 pointless things about football in the last 18 months. This is another. You probably watched the game. You know what happened.
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1) Melts that can't lose can fuck off. The English mindset has elevated a functional, pretty decent team into world beaters and then rages when they don't beat the best team in the tournament. We couldn't keep up with Italy. They were very good. They are very good. We've been pretty good, but we're not Spain 2008 or Brazil 1970. We also didn't get the rub of the green with some decisions. It happens. This isn't losing to Iceland. The end result isn't 'under performance' and it's not shameful.
2) I wonder sometimes if the joy of victory is just the absence of defeat. I then wonder if that means anything...
3) If we want an attacking England team, we can't rage if they don't win every game. This side hasn't actually lost a game of football in the tournament. Teams that play all out attacking football usually fail at some point. It's harder to knit the disparate players together into a fluid and relentlessly aggressive style than it it is to create a functional unit that works from the basics that they all are coached in anyway.
4) The little car should definitely have brought the ball for the penalties. It would have lightened the mood.
5) What we have actually done if we'd won anyway?
6) Social media is a bit depressing innit?
7) Life goes on.
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