PANAMA TAT
On Sunday afternoon, England will complete stage two of their seven-step ascension to the pinnacle of international football. The Fiver’s assuming they’re going to win the Ethics World Cup, you see, having listened intently to some of the mood music that’s playing right now in the wake of their ambling around for 89 minutes like pensioners who accidentally took today’s tablets twice before bundling home a late corner against 1963 Arab Nations Cup champions Tunisia. It’s theirs, it’s in the bag, it’s coming home, they’ve done it. And not a tat in sight on the captain’s bronzed bod, either! Well done, Harry. Well done, everyone. What a man. What a glorious nation.
All that’s left to answer is: will these brave lions be leaving Russia on 15 July boasting a 100% win record in the tournament, or what? If Southgate’s England are to take their rightful place in the pantheon alongside the likes of Pozzo’s Italy and Pelé’s Brazil, they’ll need to see off Panama on Sunday. But how do England usually fare at World Cups when they face a team from Concacaf in the second game of the group stage, is the question everyone’s been asking in pubs across the country. Well, The Fiver has the answer! And there is no usually, because they’ve done it three times, losing against the USA! USA!! USA!!! in 1950, beating Mexico in 1966, and yanking someone’s hair like a petulant child against Trinidad and Tobago in 2006. Oh Big Pete! Did you really have to stoop so low?
The Fiver’s crunched the numbers, and that means England are statistically 66.6% likely to beat Panama on Sunday, or they’re due a draw, or something. That doesn’t look right, does it, but that’s surely the only conclusion you can draw from our research. Anyway, in order to avoid the ignominy of defeat against a style of hat, England are planning to replace the knacked Dele Alli with Ruben Loftus-Cheek, one of the few players in that second half the other night who didn’t look like they’d replaced their usual half-time isotonic beverage with seven litres of Night Nurse. That’s if the scrap of paper coach Steve Holland has been waving around in front of the world’s long-lens cameras is anything to go by. Though to be fair, even The Fiver would have been able to guess that switch, so we’re pretty sure it wouldn’t have been beyond Hernán Darío Gómez. Don’t beat yourself up, Steve.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I would beg for their forgiveness, especially those supporters who made such a great effort to be here. And I repeat what I said, I’m responsible. I was just as dreamy-eyed as any fan before. So I’m hurt. I did the best job I could and I quite simply did not find a way to give them what they wanted. After they scored, we kind of lost our way and we were emotionally broken” – Argentina coach and wide-ranging lookalike Jorge Sampaoli on that 3-0 rout by Croatia.
RECOMMENDED LOOKING
It’s a World Cup Friday which means mo’ David Squires for you.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Here’s the latest World Cup Football Daily podcast, with Max Rushden and co, and you can find it in this general area every matchday evening.
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FIVEЯ LETTERS
“After getting sick of watching people making TV signs every time they make a VAR appeal, isn’t it time we came up with a name for them? I would like to start it off by calling them ‘Evil Ednas’ after the miserable TV witch off the 1980s TV series Willow the Wisp” – Michael O’Donnell.
“‘Carrying the weight of a nation on their shoulders: World Cup Fiver’ (yesterday’s FiveЯ headline). Really? Are we that desperate already?” – Stephen Smith.
“Is Lionel Messi Argentina’s Lampard-Mbe conundrum all on his own?” – David Wall.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet The Fiver. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is … Michael O’Donnell.
BITS AND BOBS
Lucky Muscovites of a footballing inclination have been enjoying the novelty of live World Cup games being screened in their underground train carriages. “We monitor passenger flows and we see that some enter the metro when a match starts and they go around till the match ends,” tooted Roman Latypov, Moscow Metro suit.
A flamin’ Tim Cahill debate is bubbling away after those Socceroos drew 1-1 with Denmark to leave them on the brink of an exit.
Peru fans: they came, they made noise, they saw their team knocked out without a goal. “I [told my daughter] that this is history, you might never see this again so we had to be here,” sighed one, Rafael Jiménez. “Sometimes football is like this.”
Egypt have got a funk on and are protesting to Fifa about the performance of ref Enrique Cáceres and his team in their defeat by Russia. “It is our right to complain and ask for an investigation,” fumed Egyptian FA suit Hany Abo Rida.
And Dejan Lovren is getting giddy after Croatia advanced to the last 16. “Whoever comes, we are ready to fight,” he roared. “I think the teams and people will realise they should respect Croatia.”
STILL WANT MORE?
If it’s Argentinian misery you want to wallow in, we’ve got Francisco Navas’s roundup of the nation’s media reaction and Jonathan Wilson’s dissection of an anarchic shambles.
Their Group C rivals Iceland are in bullish mood, by way of contrast, as they shed underdog status for the game against Nigeria, reports Nick Ames.
Brazil are feeling some pressure too. Paul MacInnes on T1te’s redemption mission and the role of Neymar.
John Stones has grown in stature as an England mainstay thanks to Gareth Southgate’s confidence, writes Daniel Taylor, while Dominic Fifield salutes the sound sense behind bringing in Marcus Rashford.
Quiz! Quiz! Quiz! Match the photo to the World Cup.
Have you ever wondered what Luis Suárez, Wayne Rooney, Jürgen Klopp and others would look like in 19th-century military regalia? Wonder no more.
Liam Rosenior’s latest column highlights the importance of set pieces and pragmatism at this World Cup.
The World Cup is the antidote to the sewage lapping at our ankles, cheers Alex Clark.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!
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