HEY, DOES ANYONE REMEMBER DAVID JAMES, MR EM, SPANGLES, ETC.?
It’s that point in the two-year international cycle where England register the unexpectedly impressive win that generates the hope that leads to the despair when the hope is predictably extinguished in the summer. On Saturday evening, several unfamiliar chancers purporting to be the world champions Germany were swatted aside majestically in Berlin. As a result, everyone’s pretending not to lose the run of themselves. But they are losing the run of themselves, aren’t they. You can just tell. Can’t you tell? The Fiver can tell. We can smell it on the breeze.
Though to be fair, ahead of tonight’s Wembley friendly against the Federal Republic of Holland, the Netherlands & the Dutch, Roy Hodgson is doing his level best to dampen everyone’s expectations. He’s doing quite well, to be fair, thanks to a combination of his most tranquilising oratory – “We don’t really know how the players are going to perform in tournament conditions, I can only be boring and cliché-ridden in saying I believe in the team” – and a promise to give Daniel Sturridge a start tonight. That would represent the Liverpool striker’s first chance to knack himself in an England shirt for 18 months. Should he once again break into pieces so small you could sieve him through a tennis racquet, that’d be a huge blow going into Euro 2016 for England, who are already threatened with the imminent return of Wayne Rooney.
Another certain starter against FRoHtN&tD tonight is James Milner, who in Rooney’s absence has been named as captain for the evening. “It’s a massive honour,” deadpanned Milner, who has quite the tinder-dry sense of humour. The England armband has, of course, been devalued somewhat since the days of your Billy Wrights, Bobby Moores and Bryan Robsons, having been sported in recent years by the likes of Danny Mills, Scott Parker and 2002 Fiver favourite Mr Em the Footballing Horse. David James was also handed it during one match. Needless to say, ladies and gentlemen, he dropped it. Then sat on the floor shaking his head with a massive disbelieving grin spread right across his boat, as though the whole sorry saga had absolutely nothing to do with him. David James and Mr Em. Some biting up-to-the-minute satire, right there. You’re welcome!
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE!
Join Scott Murray for red-hot friendly action from England 2-2 FRoHtN&tD at 8pm.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“[Manuel] Pellegrini is a great coach and I am 100% sure that at all levels he is a much better manager than [Sulky Teenager André] Villas-Boas … [he] failed at Chelsea and Tottenham, but somehow found himself in St Petersburg” – Andrei Kanchelskis continues to be just as busy flapping his gums as a manager in the Russian second division as he was flapping his feet as a winger in the English top flight.
RECOMMENDED LOOKING
David Squires on … Johan Cruyff.
FIVER LETTERS
“Re. Thursday’s Fiver, what a lovely tribute to one of the game’s absolute legends – a word that is overused, but entirely appropriate for Cruyff. It was nice to see a completely humourless edition of the Fiver, and I look forward to another such edition on Tuesday” – Eric Penner.
“Further to Sam Carpenter’s email on heinous tricks to double your readership (Thursday’s Fiver letters), may I be the first of 1,058 pedants to highlight that if a named pedant is joined by 1,057 ‘others’ then, by the laws of mathematics and all that is holy, doubling that number would result in a minimum readership of 2,116. Not 2,114 as John’s brother mistakenly pointed out” – David Lambert.
“I was reading a tea-timely email about a jazz man who saw a cod man who sat next to a ketchup man. This riff dragged and dragged and dragged all week. So I hit the unsubscribe-to-tea-timely-email link. Problem solved!” – Mike Wilner.
• 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 … Eric Penner.
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BITS AND BOBS
Arsène Wenger, perhaps because it is his job, is going to continue managing Arsenal while happily floating above the angry views regularly expressed at the Sense of Entitlement Stadium. “I am committed and when I do something I do it 100%,” he sighed. “I am always committed to give my best as long as I am at the club. I don’t worry too much about the rest, what other people say.”
Aston Villa fans will be chuffed to know that the club have shelled out yet more coin to bring in another former FA suit, Adrian Bevington, to join David Bernstein in sifting through the Villa Park wreckage to work out what has gone wrong.
‘Arry Redknapp watched his Jordan side get walloped 5-1 by the flamin’ Socceroos in World Cup qualifying. “The players are the players, I can’t suddenly bring in [Him]. It is what it is. They tried their best but they were beaten by a better team,” he sniffed.
Martín Demichelis has hinted that he may hang up his boots but don’t get excited, Manchester City fans, he’s talking only about his international ones. “I’m not physically ill but I know that there are new players,” he spluttered. “The coach has to have an eye on the project.”
And former Colombia striker Faustino Asprilla took time out from riding a footballing horse while dressed as a dinosaur to admonish Real Madrid for not giving James/Hames/Hamez Rodríguez enough respect. “This season he hasn’t been able to prove anything because they haven’t given him the special treatment every player needs from their club,” he soothed.
STILL WANT MORE?
It’s dead hard, three times longer than is probably necessary, and unless your screen faces a wall, might get you sacked, but if Martin White took the time out of his busy day (week, surely? – Fiver Ed) to make this 80-question quiz (EIGHTY), the least you can do is click here and have a go at the damn thing.
It’s nearly 20 years since England humbled Holland at Euro 96 so Michael Gibbons locked himself into a dark room for a few hours and came out with a bucketload of nostalgia.
Sachin Nakrani looks back on the legacy of Bobby Soulpatch Pires and the cutest of lobs over Aston Villa’s Peter Schmeichel in 2002, as part of our Golden Goal series.
Robert Huuuuuuth stars as a Manic Street Preacher, Jack Nicholson and a member of the Rebel Alliance in this week’s Gallery.
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