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Pre-tournament friendlies

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Every single world cup it is the same. I write down the date of the first game in my diary (well, truth be told I write down the exact date and time of EVERY game in my diary) - but what I always always forget is that the teams play warm up matches in the fortnight before the tournament proper. Far from being meaningless friendlies - these games, for once, are actually really worth something. Players playing for their places, partnerships tested and the team finding its feet and discovering a pattern of play that it will take into the tournament.

 I love pre-World Cup friendlies; and I am sat in front of England's first one tonight. Glass of Malbec to hand, for the South American vibe, too. Today England are playing against Peru - a team close to my heart because of the awesome road trip I did there in 2012. It is a country that is better at serving chicken feet in soup than it is at football, but a decent test nonetheless. We should win of course, but are doing a pretty good job of not winning at this very moment (25 minutes in).

 Interesting team selection for this one too: the back 5 as expected (Hart, Baines, Jagielka, Cahill, Johnson) and Rooney & Sturridge as the strike partnership - but a midfield of Welbeck, Gerrard, Henderson and Lallana raises my eyebrows at least. And in a good way. It is both attacking yet solid at the same time. I think it demonstrates that Hodgson likely feels Sterling is not quite ready, and is most likely to be an "impact substitute" (or someone we turn to when we need to win at all costs). Lallana deserves a go, after a great season for Firesale FC (aka Southampton).

 I'm going to sign off for the day now - but the plan is to blog every day during the tournament, if for no other reason than to give me something extra to do during the 6 hours of games each day. I will also try to cover off a bit of pre-tournament admin to include:


  • sharing the bets I make for the tournament
  • pointing to my fave podcasts that cover the World Cup
  • listing my (completed) Panini Euro 2012 sticker book on ebay; and examining how, at the age of 36, I managed to actually go through the process of collecting stickers depicting various players who did or didn't make their national squads)


 Edit: wow - Sturridge just scored and absolute pearler. Left peg, top corner. Boom. Bye for now.

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