TIME TO ROAR
Football fans used to monitoring England’s progress at major international football tournaments have come to expect certain things. The sullen and nervous players cloistered in five-star hotels being ferried to and from training in luxury coaches behind tinted windows. The achingly paranoid press conferences in which carefully coached and reluctant “volunteers” refuse to veer off their meticulously prepared scripts to divulge even the most inconsequential bits of frivolous information. The big pre-match talk followed by a second-round exit on penalties. Or more recently, the total humiliation at the hands of Iceland.
“They’re all just … HEADPHONES!” roared a frustrated Chris Waddle in the wake of England’s slapstick exit from Euro 2016 last summer. On the face of it, the former superstar’s analysis made no sense whatsoever, his insinuation could scarcely have been more clear. This summer, however, England’s Lionesses have shown there is another, much better and more pleasant way. Based in Utrecht throughout Euro 2017, Mark Sampson’s squad have been spending their downtime freely mingling with fans, pootling around the narrow streets of a Dutch city habitually soundtracked by bicycle bells and relaxing in restaurants and coffee houses. They have been happy to make themselves available for each and every media engagement, where they speak freely, from the heart and occasionally even smile.
On the field, results could scarcely have been better: played four, won four, scored 11 and conceded one. Whisper it, but it’s almost as if you treat footballers like adults and let them enjoy themselves, this laissez faire attitude might be reflected in their play. The highest ranked team left in the competition, England face hosts Holland in the semi-finals tonight, a tall order in front of a partisan 30,000 crowd. “Silencing the crowd is the aim,” says England striker Jodie Taylor. “Silencing a hostile crowd is the best feeling ever.” No stranger to hostile crowds, particularly the angry mob of pike and torch-waving readers that’s been growing outside Fiver Towers for the past 18 years, The Fiver will be tuning in for tips tonight. England expects! And one of its senior teams may actually deliver.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
Join Scott Murray for England 1-1 Holland (aet; England win 4-3 on penalties) from 7.45pm.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“For me, it is the consequence of the ownerships and that has completely changed the whole landscape of football in the last 15 years. Once a country owns a club, everything is possible … We crossed the £100m line last year and, only one year later, we’re crossing the £200m line. When you think that Trevor Francis was the first £1m player and that looked unreasonable, it shows you how much distance and how far we have come, how big football has become. It’s beyond calculation and beyond rationality” – Arsène Wenger nails it on the Neymar deal, which is edging forward despite La Liga’s refusal to accept PSG’s attempt to hand over the money to buy out the forward’s contract at Barcelona.
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FIVER LETTERS
“In a (now sadly defunct) company that I used to work for, one of the managers took a call from someone who said they were going to be late in as they’d ‘...taken a gamble on fart. And lost’” – Kit Hunwicks.
“Re: ‘It’s the inexhorable approach of the Premier League behemoth [yesterday’s Fiver].’ Is the extra h in inexorable, rendering it vaguely Portuguese looking, subtly meant to be a more specific advance warning as to the imminent arrival of the inexhaustible melodramatics of José Mourinho? Quão tedioso!” – Richard Harman.
“I believe the accepted chemical symbol for Tin [yesterday’s Fiver letters] is Sn rather than SN although I don’t know if addressing a letter to Swindon using an Sn prefixed postcode would confuse postie. In an effort to shoehorn another football element into this reply (see what I did there?) the symbol for Barium is Ba and coincidentally Southend have just signed Amadou Ba on a two year deal. I’m not sure that drinking Barium solution is recommended other than under medical supervision” – Rick Webster.
“I hate to be a pedant (he lied), but the chemical symbol for tin is Sn; the case of the letter is important, other wise it could represent the two elements sulfur and nitrogen. Just saying. Do I at least win the prize for the star chemistry letter of the day?” – Alan Willis
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 star chemistry letter o’the day is … Rick Webster.
BITS AND BOBS
Former Disney chief executive Michael Eisner has completed a £5.67m takeover of Portsmouth. If only there was a joke in there somewhere.
Pedro Caixinha has stood by his claim that the Pope’s O’Rangers have the best squad in Scotland. “If I don’t think like that representing [O’]Rangers today then I’m a guy just sitting in my chair letting time pass me by,” he honked, giving the Fiver food for thought.
Liverpool have been seeded alongside Sevilla, Napoli, CSKA Moscow and Sporting Lisbon for tomorrow’s Big Cup play-off draw, which means they could face Mario Balotelli’s Nice, Steaua Bucharest, Young Boys of Berne, Istanbul Basaksehir or Hoffenheim.
Matt Done has, erm, done one from Sheffield United to Rochdale, where he’s had two previous spells. “I’ve had some good times here,” said Done, like a man returning to the bus shelter that was his favourite teenage drinking haunt.
Former Accrington Stanley midfielder Paddy Lacey has been sent to the big house for 16 months after being caught in possession of jazz salts, fake cash and other party drugs at Glastonbury.
Pep Guardiola was almost lucky enough to miss Manchester City’s flight to Reykjavik for a hyped meaningless friendly with West Ham after forgetting his passport and sending a lackey back to his house to get it for him.
And Philippe Albert has revealed why the chemistry was so good at Newcastle when Kevin Keegan was manager: “We went to the restaurant and then just went out clubbing all night,” cheered the Belgian, to a pumping backing track of Give Me Luv by Alcatraz.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Football Weekly is back with all your favourites: Presenter Man! The Producer! Phone Call Time! Guest Person! And Barry Glendenning!
THE RECAP
Sign up and receive the best of Big Website’s coverage, every Friday, it says here. Seems to be a curious lack of mentions for The Fiver …
STILL WANT MORE?
Impress your friend(s) with how much you know about plucky Huddersfield Town and transfer-window bothering Everton’s season prospects by taking a deep dive into our latest Premier League previews.
And if they’re still listening to you, you can tell them all about what’s going to happen in the Championship this season by passing off Ben Fisher’s opinions in this here preview as your own.
Alan McCredie captured all the moody images you could ever want from the opening games in the Scottish lower leagues last season so that you didn’t have to.
If you thought Neymar’s £198m transfer was b@tsh!t crazy, just wait for the ripple effect, warns Ed Aarons.
Neymar free-jazzing his way through the whole of the Santos team from some years back features in this week’s Classic YouTube, among other things.
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