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Are you not entertained?

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 A quick post in between both semi finals. After boringly ploughing through the tournament, Spain spectacularly came to the boil at the right time in a tournament and produced an amazing commanding performance over France. Yes, that same team that looked frankly unbeatable all month and nobody could see losing, I had a feeling that they could come unstuck here. 

Spain simply took the ball and barely gave it back, demonstrating great composure and control throughout, anchored by the man mountain of Rodri in the middle of everything. All of a sudden, it became a simple game where Lucas Digne was asked to mark Yamal, and the outcome was quite predictable.

Which takes me to England and my increasing nerves. After lots of talk about Argentina being beatable, comes the glaring realization we’re coming up against the greatest ever player in a World Cup semi final. Oh my. This will need to be done the hard way. Put aside his walking, the FIFA and refereeing love-in, etc, - great players have that intangible knack to elevate their game at the highest level and at just the right time.

Thankfully, there’s an optimistic side of my brain that also sees the fact we have world class talent too - and Jude could quite easily execute a changing of the guard. So we go into the game with hope, but it will be tense and our big players will need to show up AGAIN… but maybe they will, and maybe we can start to dream of Djed Spence marking Yamal…. nurse!

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