Reaction and analysis
David Hytner was at Wembley to see England claim top spot in Group D. His report has landed, and here it is. Click and enjoy. Congratulations to England, commiserations to Scotland, and thanks for reading this MBM. Stay safe, and nighty night.
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Gareth Southgate gives Independent TeleVision his verdict. “We started really well. We were stable with the ball. We changed what we were doing overnight because of the change to personnel, so great credit to the players. We’ve been super-impressed with Bukayo, his receiving under pressure was fantastic. I think there’s more to come from us. We haven’t scored from a set play yet. They’re crucial in big matches, so we’ve got to get those nailed. We’re not fluent, but we have moments when we look a good side. There’s a lot of good things that we are doing. We’ve got most of the squad into the games. Ninety minutes for Harry Maguire, which was important. Hendo 45, which was a real step forward. A lot of positives for us. It’s great to have more supporters. Who knows whether it’ll be a good draw or not, but we wanted to win the group, to stay at Wembley, and we’ll wait and see who we’ll play tomorrow.”
Bukayo Saka, who was superb tonight, is interviewed by ITV. “I think it was a really good performance. We played some really good football. Having already qualified, we played with a lot more freedom, time to express ourselves. I’m happy with my performance and the team. I was told to play my game and express myself, how I played for my club all season. Sometimes that means dropping in and driving at opponents. I did that, and it was a good cross from Jack, and Raheem was in the right place at the right time again to score us a goal. I was up there, but I’m not quite tall enough! It’s important for us to be here at Wembley, we win here a lot and the fans are an extra man.”
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Raheem Sterling, the goalscoring hero once again, talks to ITV. “There’s positives from the game. We kept the ball better, we had more attacking options. We got in the gaps really well and played some good football. We got the goal we needed. I thought I’d put the first effort away, but am happy to get my goal in the end. Saka and Grealish got in the pockets really well, turned with the ball, they were positive. It’s brilliant to have these players around you, who can create goals. Different players are needed for different matches. If you don’t concede goals, you win football matches. We just need to score at the other end. Our objective from the beginning was to win the group. Things are going to be difficult at times. It’s tournament football, and at some point you’re going to have to face the best teams. That’s the whole point, to challenge yourself.”
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It wasn’t the greatest performance by England, but then there’s no point peaking in the groups. Raheem Sterling scored his second goal of the tournament, after fine work by Bukayo Saka and Jack Grealish. Harry Maguire and Jordan Henderson got some precious minutes, while Harry Kane finally got a shot on target. They’ll need to take it up a notch for the heavyweight opponents most likely coming up next, but they’ve topped their group, are yet to concede, will stay at Wembley, and have a week to prepare. Life’s not too bad, huh?
FULL TIME: Czech Republic 0-1 England
England top Group D! They’ve made it through without conceding a goal, and will welcome the runners-up of Group F to Wembley next Tuesday evening! France, Germany, Portugal or Hungary await. The Czechs finish third after Croatia’s 3-1 win over Scotland.
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90 min +2: Kane romps after a long ball, but he’s never getting there. Another goalless match for the captain, but at least he got a shot on target this time.
90 min +1: Kral has a bash from distance. Nope.
90 min: There will be three added minutes. “Poor Scotland,” sighs Mary Waltz. “As the fog and rain gathers around Scottish hearts everywhere, at least they avoided the ignominy of being scoreless for the entire tourney. Weak gruel but it’s something.” Yes. Scotland have suffered more painful exits, too. And there’s always next year!
88 min: The home fans are in party mode. England are so close to winning Group D and staying at Wembley. The Czechs are offering nothing.
86 min: For a second, it looks as though Jordan Henderson has finally scored his first goal in an England shirt. He latches onto a Bellingham prod down the inside-right, stabbing home from six yards, but the flag goes up, correctly, for offside. He was miles off.
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84 min: Pekhart swivels on the edge of the England box and rasps a low drive inches wide right. Then a couple of changes: Vydra comes on for Holes, while the excellent Saka makes way for Sancho.
83 min: The England fans are enjoying Scotland’s demise. A blast of Daydream Believer.
81 min: The same old story for Scotland, then. A third goal for Croatia. Ah bugger. Oh well. That’s got implications for the Czechs, too; as things stand, Croatia have leapfrogged them into second spot in the Group D table on goals scored.
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79 min: Mings comes on for Stones.
78 min: Kane robs Kalas. He should break clear down the right, but opts for a swan dive over Kalas’s leg instead. The referee, quite rightly, is not interested.
76 min: Boril’s corner is bashed clear by Stones.
75 min: Kral romps down the left and wins a corner. Before it can be taken, Schick is replaced by Pekhart.
74 min: Bellingham makes good down the inside-left channel but as he shapes to shoot, is barged off the ball by Holes, who pokes out for a corner. Nothing comes of the set piece.
73 min: England play some keep-ball. Stones tries to raise the tempo with a leggy burst down the middle but he’s never totally in control and soon possession is shipped.
71 min: Phillips sprays a long ball down the middle, very nearly releasing Saka. Vaclik comes to the edge of his area to claim.
70 min: The tempo of this match has dropped. Everyone killing time.
68 min: Nothing much happens at the free kick, other than Maguire screaming for a penalty, claiming a shove in the back from Boril. Neither referee nor VAR is interested.
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67 min: Before the free kick can be taken, Sterling is replaced by Rashford, while Grealish makes way for Bellingham.
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66 min: Another fine burst by Saka sets England on the attack. Coufal puts an end to the move by clattering into Sterling out on the left. Free kick. Everyone lines up on the edge of the Czech box.
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65 min: A double change by the Czechs. Hlozek and Kral come on for Darida and Masopust.
63 min: Another big cheer from the English fans, so you know what’s happened at Hampden. Luka Modric with a dagger through Scotland’s heart. Bah.
61 min: Boril climbs all over Saka, and goes into the book. He’ll miss the Czech Republic’s second-round match, which at the moment will be in Copenhagen against someone from Group E.
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60 min: Coufal crosses from a deep position on the right. Under pressure from Schick, Pickford punches powerfully clear. That’s good proactive goalkeeping. “Coventry v Spurs was the Mensheviks,” argues Richard Hirst. “For the Bolsheviks you surely have to go to Wigan beating Man City.”
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58 min: Sterling gives Phillips a hospital pass, and Darida nicks the ball away. Phillips hauls the Czech captain down, and is fortunate not to go into the book.
56 min: A lull, which both teams seem fairly happy with right now.
54 min: Pickford launches long. Kane flicks on. Sterling very nearly breaks free into the box, but Boril steps across just in time to intercept and clear. That was almost the perfect 1980s throwback. Beautiful in its own basic way.
53 min: Boril and Coufal work together down the right. The ball’s shuttled into the middle, where Saka buzzes around to clear. Saka is a class act at both ends of the pitch.
51 min: Henderson almost releases Kane with a prompt from deep. Not quite. Sterling then tries to release Shaw down the left with a back heel. Nearly. It’s that sort of game right now.
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49 min: England are perhaps fortunate that the Czechs work a non-event of a short corner. Darida sidefoots harmlessly towards the near post, where Pickford gathers, the Czech captain then getting legally clattered by Saka for his trouble.
48 min: England faff about too much, Phillips overhitting a backpass, Walker unable to keep the ball from going out for a corner.
47 min: A slow start to the second half, England stroking it around the back awhile. “Surely Coventry’s win over Spurs in 1987 was the ultimate triumph of the proletariat over the reactionary bourgeoisie,” opines Brian ‘Trotsky’ Withington. George Curtis as Marx to John Sillett’s Engels?
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England get the second half underway. Both teams have made a half-time change. Jankto is replaced by Sevcik, while Rice makes way for Henderson, who like Maguire is returning from injury and needs some minutes under his belt.
Half-time entertainment. As things stand, England will most likely meet Germany next Tuesday ...
... but nothing’s certain.
HALF TIME: Czech Republic 0-1 England
No added time, and England are 45 minutes away from a second-round showdown with the runners-up of Group F.
45 min: More boos, presumably in reaction to this: Scotland have equalised against Croatia! Well, well. Now then. C’mon! Paul Doyle has all the details.
43 min: Kane sends a low, hard curler towards the bottom left. Vaclik sticks out a leg to block. The ball breaks to Sterling, though his back is turned and he doesn’t know. The England fans boo, thinking Sterling has downed tools, but he knows he’s well offside, and the flag goes up.
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42 min: Walker works his way down the right and wins another England corner. They revive the old queue-up-and-scatter routine showcased at the 2018 World Cup. Celustka is wise to the grift and bangs clear.
40 min: A lull. “Anyone else wondering nervously what Germany might do to this England defence?” shudders Richard Hirst.
38 min: Nothing comes of the corner. “For some reason, your Marxist/Communist/post-structural philosophy discussion has reminded me of the classic Python sketch of a game show involving Marx, Lenin, Che and Mao,” writes Steve Buist. “ ‘The struggle of class against class is a what struggle, a what struggle?’ ‘A political struggle,’ Marx replied. But then he lost the beautiful new lounge suite when he couldn’t answer the final question: Who won the 1949 Cup final? It was Wolverhampton, not ‘The workers’ control of the means of production.’” A great sketch, albeit one fatally compromised by the 1987 final.
37 min: Now Shaw shows up the other end of the park, sent into a little space down the left by Grealish. His low shot-cum-cross nearly squeaks in at the near post, having taken a little deflection en route. Vaclik tips it around the post, just in time.
35 min: The Czechs really should be level now. A deep cross from the left. Jankto shapes to scissor home. Shaw bravely stoops to stop him. The ball breaks to Soucek, free on the penalty spot. He tries to steer a first-time shot into the left-hand side of the goal. Pickford wasn’t getting there, but the ball flies wide. What a chance!
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33 min: Saka works his way down the right to earn an England corner. Phillips swings it in. Coufal heads clear, and seconds later the ball’s back at the feet of Pickford. A smattering of boos.
31 min: The Czechs continue to probe. They’ve quietened Wembley a little, as England struggle to get out of their own half.
29 min: A corner on the left leads to another on the right. The second one results in a scramble, the ball nearly breaking to Soucek on the penalty spot. One of the boots poking out of the comic-book cloud of dust clears. Very scrappy. The Czechs could easily have levelled there.
28 min: Holes seizes the means of production and belts it towards the top left of England’s goal. Pickford does extremely well to palm it away for a corner.
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27 min: Nothing comes of the resulting corner. Here’s comrade Andrew Benton: “Saka’s non-foul? The ref’s a bourgeoise reactionary.”
26 min: Maguire steps up, channelling his inner Beckenbauer, and finds Kane down the inside-left with a gorgeous through ball. Kane drops a shoulder to make some space and time, and curls towards the bottom right. Vaclik sticks out a strong arm to block. Celustka hacks out for a corner. Kane was within his rights to shoot, one on one with the keeper, though Sterling was free to his right.
24 min: Some nice Czech triangulation, and Masopust is sent into space down the right. He loops towards the far post, where Walker bravely chests back to Pickford. That was super-calm defending under pressure from Schick.
22 min: The Czechs, after a torrid start, are beginning to work their way into this. Coufal draws another foul from Shaw, down the right, and takes the free kick quickly, his shovelled pass nearly finding Masopust free with England’s back line dozing. Pickford is alert, though, and he comes out to claim ahead of the Czech midfielder.
20 min: A cheer goes up around Wembley. Yep: Scotland 0-1 Croatia. Bugger it. Paul Doyle has the details.
19 min: Instead of sticking the ball into the mixer, the Czechs pull it back for Darida, who wants to shoot from distance, but is hounded by Saka. Great defending by the young man. What a waste of good field position, though, by a team renowned for their set-piece prowess.
18 min: The Czechs press high, Coufal latching onto a loose ball and breaking down the right. Shaw clanks him to the ground. Free kick in a dangerous position.
16 min: Grealish does what Grealish does, drawing a foul out wide on the left. Saka, who has also started brightly, swings it in low and earns a corner. Shaw hoicks it long. Saka is bundled over on the edge of the D by Boril, a clear foul, but he’s not getting the decision. Very strange.
14 min: The visitors try to strike back immediately, Celustka crossing deep from the right, looking for Schick. Not quite, but it’s a decent response to falling behind. “Have the Man City players made a bet to see who can hit the post the earliest in the tournament?” wonders Ian Webb. “Foden against Croatia, Stones against Scotland and now Sterling. Perhaps Walker in the second-round match is next up?” He might be onto something, you know. Lump on, people.
GOAL! Czech Republic 0-1 England (Sterling 12)
Sterling has already hit the post ... and now he finds the net! Saka burns down the right. He crosses. It’s not cleared. Then Grealish is sent dancing down the left by Kane. He dinks to the far post, where Sterling storms in to plant home a header from close range. Wembley erupts!
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11 min: Kane meets a loose ball, 25 yards out, and sends a speculative effort towards the Hanger Lane gyratory system.
10 min: The resulting free kick is hooked into the Czech box. Stones eyebrows a harmless header out for a goal kick.
9 min: Kalas and Kane complete for a high ball. The England captain catches an arm across the jaw. He stays down for a bit, but eventually gets up, rubbing the old chin. Clearly a sore one. The referee has a quiet word with the Bristol City defender.
8 min: Kalas flings a throw down the right. Maguire improvises a backwards header to see off the threat of Masopust.
6 min: The Czechs ping the ball around, enjoying some pretty possession for the first time. Rice puts and end to it by clipping Darida from behind. Soon after the restart, Holes bundles the perpetually fouled Grealish to the ground. One reducer all.
4 min: That was a lovely ball down the flank by Shaw, and a delicate lob by Sterling. That’s got Wembley cooking early doors. A fine atmosphere. “You have unlocked the mystery of why Jordan Sancho is off the pitch,” writes Mary Waltz. “He is a Trotsky deviant and the Big Man, Kane, is plotting his demise!”
2 min: Shaw scoops a ball down the inside-left channel. Sterling tears clear, chasing after it. Easy as that. Vaclik rushes out to claim. Sterling gets there first, though, scooping over the keeper and into the empty ... ah. The ball clanks off the outside of the right-hand post and away. So close to a sensational start!
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The Czechs kick off ... but only after England a knee. There’s no room for racism. Challenge it. Report it. Change it. Kick it out.
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Here come the teams! England wear their famous white, the Czechs in first-choice red. Please stand, or stay sitting, whatever really, for the national drones. We’ll be off in a minute or two! “On ITV, Mark Pougatch just said it could be a ‘Sliding Doors’ moment for Grealish,” reports Ben Bennett. “It’s weird that a middling 90s film with John Hannah in it has made such an impact on the contemporary lexicon. I can’t help picture Roy Keane on the sofa with his Live, Laugh, Love mug cosying up on the sofa watching Paltrow’s multiverse romances, having a little cry.”
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Deconstructing the knee. “In the face of the inevitable Czech (or Schick) puns that will be used tonight, a Czechia side featuring Darida/Derrida in midfield offers some variety,” begins Satya Gunput. “Given that some MPs are convinced that England players ‘taking the knee’ against racism are part of a Marxist plot to subvert the nation, it must be an exciting night for Harry Kane and his communist reading group. Coming up against the author of such hits as ‘The Spectres of Marx’ and ‘Whither Marxism’ is sure to bring the best out of the team.” Boo! Boo! Keep post-structural philosophy out of football!
Some correspondence from the official Gareth Southgate Fan Club. “Completely baffled at Southgate’s decision to leave Sterling on the pitch and Sancho off it, especially given his reasoning for allowing Grealish to ‘express himself’ in a game with lower stakes. What does Sancho have to do to get a look in?” - Rahul Vanamali.
“What on earth is Southgate thinking starting Maguire? No way any player should be expected to do a full 90 minutes straight after injury, so that means you have one less sub. If he wants him to get minutes then bring him on if you are leading and the other subs don’t matter” - Charlotte Casey.
Who’d be an England manager, huh?
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A cheerful Harry Maguire talks to ITV. “It’s amazing to be selected in the squad in the first place. Then obviously to get my chance to play tonight and overcome the injury that’s set me back for over six weeks, which is quite strange in my career because it’s probably the longest one I’ve had. I’ve had some tough moments but I’m here and ready to play. There are always nerves before a game, especially for England, but they’re a good thing. In training you can only go so far, the game is what matters, and you get your fitness in a game, though I feel I’ve done everything right to prepare myself for this. The boys up to now have done a great job. We want to entertain the crowd and put big smiles on their faces. We want to score goals. We want to play with intensity and tempo, and try to control a lot better than we did against Scotland.”
Southgate also appears to rule out any possibility of Mount and Chilwell appearing in the round of 16. Should England win tonight and top Group D, Southgate’s team will play the runners up in Group F next Tuesday. That’s the first date the pair would be available for selection again, though it’d be a tight squeeze. “Even that will be very difficult given the training schedule and the need to isolate. We’ll have to look at that as we move forward.”
Then he moves on to this evening’s selection. First up, the dropping of Phil Foden: “He’s on a yellow card. Given we look like missing two players for the next round, I don’t want to take a risk on a third. It’s a shame for Phil, but I think it’s the sensible decision.” Then onto Jack Grealish: “It’s one of those nights, it’s a rarity in tournament football. There is a prize, we want to stay at Wembley, and it’s a great opportunity, we want to play winning football. But also the consequence of not doing so well is less fatal. So it’s a great night for our attacking players to go and express themselves.” Then Harry Maguire: “He’s been the outstanding English defender in the league this season, and has been a bedrock. It’s a difficult call because Tyrone Mings has been a colossus, but it’s a good opportunity for Harry to get 90 minutes. We were hoping he’d be available for this game, and he is.”
Gareth Southgate speaks to ITV about the loss to Covid protocols of Mason Mount and Ben Chilwell, after their contact in the tunnel last Friday with the stricken Billy Gilmour. “They are of course hugely disappointed to miss the games. We’ve just had to get on with it. It’s a bizarre situation really. They’ve spend 120 seconds too long in a fairly open space. It’s full of contradictions for me, but we have to get on with it. Frankly I don’t understand it at all. There are teams travelling around by plane, by coach, by bus, sitting in enclosed spaces for hours, and our two boys have been pinged for something which is ... y’know ... yeah, I don’t get it, I really don’t get it.” He also once again addresses the fact that England have two players self-isolating while Scotland have none. “I have no issue for Steve Clarke or for Scotland, I don’t want them to have any more issues than we’ve had. But it seems a bizarre situation.”
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Four changes for England from the starting XI named against Scotland. Jack Grealish and Bukayo Saka start, while at the other end of the pitch, Harry Maguire and Kyle Walker return. Tyrone Mings and Reece James drop to the bench, Phil Foden is left out altogether, and Mason Mount is in self-isolation, having been in close contact with Billy Gilmour. The Czechs name the same side that drew 1-1 with Croatia last Friday.
The teams
Czech Republic: Vaclik, Coufal, Celustka, Kalas, Boril, Holes, Soucek, Masopust, Darida, Jankto, Schick.
Subs: Kaderabek, Brabec, Barak, Krmencik, Sevcik, Mandous, Hlozek, Vydra, Kral, Mateju, Koubek, Pekhart.
England: Pickford, Walker, Stones, Maguire, Shaw, Phillips, Rice, Saka, Grealish, Sterling, Kane.
Subs: Henderson, Rashford, Trippier, Ramsdale, Mings, Coady, Sancho, Calvert-Lewin, White, Johnstone, James, Bellingham.
Referee: Artur Soraes Dias (Portugal).
Six members of the Czech squad have experience of playing in England. Tomáš Souček and Vladimír Coufal are currently impressing at West Ham, Matěj Vydra bustles for Burnley, and Tomáš Kalas is captain of Bristol City. Aleš Matějů spent a couple of years at Brighton & Hove Albion, while Ondřej Čelůstka had a brief spell on loan at Sunderland.
Stop Schick, stop Czechia? The Bayer Leverkusen striker has scored all three of the Czech Republic’s goals in the tournament so far, as Scotland will not need reminding. He also scored in the Czechs’ final warm-up game against Albania, so is currently on a blistering hot run of four goals in his last three international appearances. His overall tally for his country is none too shabby either: 14 in 28. Jordan Pickford is advised to keep the walkabouts to a minimum this evening.
Czechoslovakia won the Euros in 1976. You can read a bit about the greatest international tournament in history (yes it is) in the article below. Those in search of even more detail of Euro 76 can find some in this issue of the Blizzard, as well as a superb tome by Jonathan O’Brien called Euro Summits: The Story of the Uefa European Championship, which explores every nook and cranny of the finals from 1960 to 2016, and gets the official MBM stamp of approval. Highly recommended.
This is the first time the English and the Czechs have locked horns at a European Championship finals. England did meet Czechoslovakia twice at the World Cup, though. They scraped a victory in Guadalajara in 1970 thanks to an Allan Clarke penalty, and weren’t much more impressive when winning 2-0 in Bilbao in 1982, the Czechs the architects of their own downfall, Jozef Barmos scoring an own goal, keeper Zdenek Hruska dropping one at the feet of Trevor Francis.
England and the Czechs faced each other in qualifying for these finals. England won the match at Wembley, back in March 2019, with great ease. Raheem Sterling scored a hat-trick, Harry Kane netted a penalty, and a Tomáš Kalas own goal put the tin lid on the Czech Republic’s biggest defeat as an independent nation. Declan Rice made his debut that night.
It looked good for England in Prague a few months later, when Kane again scored from the spot after five minutes. But Jakub Brabec equalised five minutes later, and Zdeněk Ondrášek snatched victory with five minutes to go. That was the Czech Republic’s first win against England, though they’d also beaten them twice as part of the old Czechoslovakia.
Preamble
England are already through, so can’t really lose tonight ... but they can’t really win, either. If they see off the Czech Republic this evening with confidence-building panache, they’ll finish top of Group D. Hooray! The only problem being, they’ll most likely go on to face Germany at Wembley in the second round, and Joachim Löw’s men have just rediscovered their mojo. A draw or defeat would leave Gareth Southgate’s men in second place, and most probably fated to play Spain in Copenhagen. That’d be a more palatable prospect against blunt opponents ... but anything other than a good win tonight will get everyone’s dander up, so, y’know. It’s possible that England could end up third, and in the lap of the gods, but only if they lose and Scotland run a few past Croatia, so let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.
Much better to forget about the permutations and accept that whatever will be, will be. It’ll be fine whatever happens. Knockout football’s a-comin’ one way or another. So pull up a chair. Pour yourself a glass of cordial. Stop and smell the roses. Enjoy the game. Kick off is at 8pm BST.
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