NATIONAL ANTHEM
When Uefa commissioned an anthem for the Nations League it hoped to “capture the unity of the supporters, plus the importance of the competition”. It might also have proved quite popular with “the kids”. After all, co-composer Giorgio Tuinfort previously had a hand in songs recorded by David Guetta, Britney Spears and Rihanna, as well as Gwen Stefani’s wildly successful and even more grating The Sweet Escape. This one, though, would turn out rather different, partly because it doesn’t feature Akon or Ne-Yo, but mainly because all but three words are in Latin. “Dies venit, o, dies luxit, The Nations League!” it concludes, confusingly.
It seems a strange choice of language when the competition itself has turned out to be totally shiny and new, and likely to go down as the first in history for which the qualifiers have been by some margin the most exciting bit. Three of the four top-tier groups were decided by wild final-match turnarounds, and now the dust is settling on an unexpected final four of Portugal, England, Switzerland and the Netherlands, who snaffled the final spot by scoring twice in the final five minutes to snatch a draw against Germany on Monday. The Dutch comeback came courtesy of an inspired tactical brainwave on the part of their junior coaching staff, the cunning idea being to completely bypass the man in the managerial turtleneck, noted motivation-vacuum Ronald Koeman, in favour of passing written instructions straight to the players, and making Koeman feel involved by asking him to do the actual passing.
On this occasion the note was handed to Kenny Tete, containing instructions for Virgil van Dijk to join the attack. “When we were 2-0 down they asked me if we should change things around and I said yes,” Koeman revealed. “Next thing I knew I had the note, so I gave it to Kenny. It’s fantastic that the equaliser came from the guy who was told in the note to push up front.”
Meanwhile, England’s success has sent the nation into a prolonged bout of unhatched egg-counting, with several newspapers pointing out that Gareth Southgate’s preparations will be unpleasantly impeded by next summer’s Portuguese-based final-four face-off starting just a few days after Big Cup final, an event that has involved the active participation of English people in precisely two of the last six years (and that’s only if you count Mark Clattenburg). Maybe the greatest novelty of the Nations League is that this, at last, is the thing England might win. Certainly it has already been a tournament full of surprises, but then as the song so rightly says: “Solum audax, solum fortis, solum magnus, The Nations League.”
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“This is the only time you’re going to see me cry … I don’t want to keep you too long, I just want to tell you all that this is just as much for all of you as it is for me. So thank you very much Australia” – Tim Cahill, 87, gets a bit flamin’ emotional after playing his last game for the Socceroos, a 3-0 win over Lebanon.
RECOMMENDED LOOKING
‘Arry Redknapp, the traffic warden out of Threads and Jacob Rees-Moggric. This week’s David Squires cartoon.
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“Re: the recent rock/paper/scissors refereeing debate (yesterday’s Fiver). I have taken part in Sunday league games where officials have played fast and loose with the laws of the game by, variously: a) timing the match by reference to the frequency of tube trains passing Wormwood Scrubs playing fields; b) timing the match by occasional furtive glances at the transit of the sun; c) striking a tea-tray sourced from the canteen in lieu of a blowing a whistle; and d) attempting to ride a bike across the halfway line ‘because that’s how you test if the pitch is too waterlogged to play’. Do any readers have similar stories of creative interpretation?” – Andy Korman.
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Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And you can tweet The Fiver for a very short time, as that account is shutting down. You’ll always be able to get in touch by tweeting @guardian_sport. Today’s winner of our letter o’the day is … Andy Korman, who wins a copy of Rob Smyth’s brilliant new book, Kaiser: the greatest footballer never to play football.
NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
Uefa chief suit Aleksander Ceferin says a European Super League is about as real as the nine O-levels that Weird Uncle Fiver often brags about. “The Super League will not happen. It is in a way a fiction now or a dream,” he tooted. “It will be our duty to safeguard the great heritages of European football.”
More than 500 footballers may have lost up to £1bn due to disastrous investments, based on bad financial advice, plus HMRC demands.
Martin O’Neill is not ready to hurl himself out of the Republic O’Ireland door marked Do One just yet, even if fans carrying sheets of A4 paper would like him to. “You have to have enthusiasm and I have had it in abundance all my career,” he whooped, while doing shuttle runs. “And it has never waned, never waned.”
Marko Arnautovic has warned Norn Iron’s Gareth McAuley to keep his hands to himself. “He tried to choke me, or fight me. But it is not a good idea to fight me” Zlataned the Austrian.
Aston Villa, Derby and Nasty Leeds are among a group of Championship clubs who are not happy with a £595m TV deal agreed between Sky and the Football League.
And style icon and sometime Arsenal defender Hector Bellerín has been flapping his gums freely about the pitfalls of various social media disgraces. “There’s always people there waiting for the smallest slip-up so they can make the biggest headline about something you have probably never said,” he definitely said.
STILL WANT MORE?
Logic suggests a World Cup in Doha really shouldn’t happen, but Proper Journalist David Conn has written this special report on why, with four years to go, it will.
USA! USA!! USA!!! are in the right mood for defending the Women’s World Cup after a successful trip to Europe, writes Suzanne Wrack.
West Ham scamp Grady Diangana gets his chat on with Paul MacInnes.
Is Marcus Rashford off to Madrid? Will Christian Pulisic choose Liverpool or Chelsea? Are Southampton in for Thomas Vermaelen? The Mill doesn’t answer any of these questions.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!
