FOOTBALL … STILL NOT STOPPING
Footballers are paid a lot of money – rather like people who excel in any field of human endeavour, never mind in the world’s most global industry. But unlike the best singers, actors and politicians, footballers work for us, the profundity of their joy in all this so complete as to render them immune from physical or mental fatigue. Consequently, it makes perfect sense that, after a long season – punctuated for the first time by a winter World Cup because footballers also work for human rights-abusing nation states – they must now schlep their carcasses through an international weekend that isn’t even a weekend, halfway through June with the European summer at its height. Quite what this means for the Marbellan alcopops industry is hard to say, but at least we’re being granted a break from the Jack Grealish meme-able content industry, hilarious though it is. Man likes Tin! Man has hair! Whatever next?!
The amazing thing is that, while the Daily remains nostalgic for something like the thrill of Luke Young replacing Andy Johnson as England storm to a 2-1 home win that really puts the mighty Chagos Islands in their place, the Nations League is actually a good idea – an accusation infrequently thrown at Uefa. But it’s unarguable that the groundbreaking discovery that competition improves competition has multiplied the quality of international football by many orders of magnitude; the problem being that a million times zero is still zero. Nevertheless, the semi-finals are upon us, beginning on Wednesday with Netherlands v Croatia in Rotterdam, and followed the next evening by Spain v Italy in Enschede.
Netherlands have exchanged the jogo bonito of Louis van Gaal, his third spell as manager over, for the unbridled panache of Ronald Koeman, at the start of his second. Which ex is next is unclear – the Daily is hoping for either Fred Grim, one of football’s greatest names, or D1ck Advocaat – but given the team recently lost 4-0 to France and needed a brace from Nathan Aké to muster a mere 3-0 win over Gibraltar, we may find out sooner than the greatest coach ever to look like Andy Pandy thinks. Croatia, meanwhile, are fresh from scrounging their way to the HR World Cup semi-finals, scoring just six goals in six games, with four coming against the famously miserly Canadian defence. They will, though, be confident of progressing to Sunday’s final, partly because the Netherlands are rubbish and partly because the cosmos still owes Luka Modric over that whole Richard Hillman farrago.
Then, on Thursday, Spain will pass the ball backwards and sideways against Italy. Their new coach, Luis de la Fuente, may have achieved almost nothing as a manager, but his surname translates as “from the source” – a far better reason to appoint someone than the “abject failure at Everton and Barcelona” the KNVB finds so compelling – though whether he can deploy his elemental origins to find a centre-forward remains to be seen. Italy, meanwhile, are fresh off a home defeat by England and a crushing 2-0 win over Malta. Or, put another way, though the players may be able to override their physical and mental fatigue, we may soon find that it’s us unable to handle any more football.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We all know the economic needs but that’s not about one player. I’ve always said the problem isn’t me, I’ve always had a clear conscience. I did the right things, I helped the club at every moment” – Jordi Alba gets his chat on with Sid Lowe. The defender, now a free agent preparing to captain Spain against Italy, discusses his Barça exit, the Premier League and dealing with lies.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
Did any other readers wonder, like me, why Kylian Mbappé would add anything to a pickle (yesterday’s Football Daily)? French people, in my humble experience, detest pickles” – Alex Cameron (and no others).
With regard to Alan Bull’s memories of attending Bobby Charlton’s Soccer School (yesterday’s Football Daily letters), I hope I’m not the only reader whose mind instantly pictured Brian Glover as Charlton in the wonderful film Kes. Those poor kids never stood a chance and I still can’t stop laughing” – Robin Foster.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our letter o’ the day is … Robin Foster, who wins our last copy of Inverting the Pyramid, the 15th anniversary edition, by Jonathan Wilson.
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