Radio

This morning's blog post comes as Japan and Costa Rica face-off in the seismic Group E. Germans everywhere will be praying for a Costa Rica win, which would potentially leave them in a place where they might still be able to qualify, even with a second defeat, against Spain tonight. (I think). Its actually a pretty good game. I love the Japan team for their positivity and pace; and its nice to see Costa Rica dust themselves down after their schooling by Spain the other day.

The past couple of days have been fun. Brazil did Brazil things and Richarlison, whilst a hateful (and in my view wildly overrated) player domestically, put on a good display of flair. Friday was decent I thought. The Wales v Iran game was pulsating, and Iran well worth their win. The result made England's opening game result look all the better. Qatar confirmed that they are indeed probably the worst quality hosts of all time, and in doing so set up a nice 3 way fight for Group A, with Netherlands and Ecuador grinding out their draw. Ecuador v Senegal will be a tasty final group game, with it all on the line. 

And onto England. Absolute hysteria at home about the lacklustre display - seemingly without realising that this is a tournament group game, the result of which has basically left us with almost certain qualification. I thought USA played well, and that England were well sub-par, but without being calamitous. Macguire, to be fair to him, played very well and in part justified his selection. Whether he'd be as effective against the likes of Mbappe remains to be seen (well, it doesn't remain to be seen, actually. He won't be!). The media hysteria mainly focussed around "why didn't Foden play", which is presumably 2022's answer to the "why didn't Grealish play" vibe in 2020. What all this does do, is shine a light on the absolute embarrassment of riches that Southgate has to work with. He could have played Foden, or Rashford, or Grealish or the three forward players that he actually did, and there'd be fair cause to justify any selection at all. What was annoying though, was hearing Southgate, post-game, saying how the players were tired after the first game and he expected it to be hard work. If only the tournament rules allowed you to take, like, a squad of players or something, so that you could switch things up to maintain energy. FIFAs fault probably. This is the thing about Southgate. His failings are masked by having an absolute top notch generation of players, and I can't help thinking that with a proper manager rather than a teacher's pet/corporate suck-ass in charge, we'd be seeking our second or third tournament success since 2016 now.

Yesterday, I got to enjoy the action in a whole new way. An ill thought through arrangement to go to Wales to watch their rugby match against Australia presented a whole new challenge to taking in the action. This challenge was made all the harder by a rail strike which rendered the whole of Cardiff grid-locked from about 25 miles out. My 44 mile drive took fully 4 hours on the way there, and about 2.5 on the way back. I listened to Australia grinding out a good win against Tunisia, which leaves Group D interesting for who will finish behind France, then got to enjoy Poland beating the Saudis - which mixes Group C up nicely. France and Denmark I missed completely - but the highlights suggest it was game of the day - France look pretty impressive, with Mbappe looking on a different level. I made it back to see Argentina recover their hopes, against Mexico. So the Group C finale on Wednesday should be a corker.

Back to it then. Today is all about the lead up to Spain against Germany - which promises to be truly dramatic.