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Pacing

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 The teams that win this thing tend to pace themselves, or so the narrative goes. By that logic, France will burn fast and burn bright but ultimately fall short. Anyone watching their front four might disagree. My group chat were discussing the relative merits of Henry vs Mbappe last night, with the score at 0-0 vs Sweden. I declared for Henry and then over the course of 30 minutes he proved me emphatically wrong. He is so fast, hits the ball so cleanly, and a new thing at this tournament, actually seems to gel with team-mates. Whether you can do anything but gel with Olise remains to be seen. They certainly seem massively equipped to go all the way. Proper full backs, a dependable goalie, solid CD and CM options and the crazy front four with the likes of Doue and Cherki in reserve. 

Another team surely doomed by being too good too soon are Mexico, who are playing with that lovely abandon that hosts usually do. They've been fun and I'm annoyed that all their games have been at stupid times (more on their next game in a bit). 

A team playing at only one pace is Norway. Call me grumpy, but I stopped finding the rowing thing funny after a day of it. I don't particularly enjoy watching them (its all a bit Brentford) - but, in this World Cup of heroes, maybe Haaland, despite being massively anonymous for large portions of the game, will take them far. Brazil next for them. 

And so we come to England. Now that is a team that is pacing itself. Dominating games, not without scares, but quietly picking up the wins without being at all flashy. I spent a good portion of the game tonight raging at BBC's commentators for their bed-wetting negativity. Rooney declaring that the first 5 minutes of the second half was shit or bust for us typified the small-minded loser mentality that has blighted us for so long. Our team is filled with high performing premier league (mainly) players, who know that the game is 90-100 minutes long, and that good teams score late. That's exactly what we did, twice to end the premature license fee payer funded witch-hunt. For what it is worth, I thought DR Congo were excellent, but England progress - thanks of course to Harry Kane's thunderous right peg. His performance tonight summed up the Kane paradox. You can spend 70 minutes wishing there was more movement and pace from Watkins, but in the other 20 he will do what he does and rack up silly amounts of goals. Fair play to Tuchel for not blinking. 

And so now we can all look forward to a minimum 3am finish on Sunday night as England face Mexico at the estadio Azteca (at 2200metres above sea level) . A genuine away game, and a genuine climate/oxygen challenge - just like old school World Cups. I am already planning my watching strategy, whilst CEO's everywhere are already rueing the inevitable loss of productivity on Monday. 

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