SPASIBA
After consuming a frothy cocktail of football and Tin for a month straight, The Fiver’s head is thumping like one of those massive Michael Mann-style helicopters today, reader. Ethics 2018 is over! What do we do now? We crack open another cold one and relive the tournament of course. So here we go. K’tish!
Slurp! Let’s start with Sunday’s ludicrously fun final, when Les Bleurgh watched Croatia tippy-tap the ball around for most of the game before pocketing the World Cup trophy with room to spare because, more than any other team in Russia, they have had a tremendous sense of occasion. Perhaps Diddy Deschamps is a genius after all. In a modern game that loves pressing football more than Granny Fiver’s posh sister loves pressing flowers, the France manager sent his team out with instructions to meet Croatia’s fast and furious play with the kind of non-plussed shrug usually performed by a French concert goer in a Daft Punk mosh-pit. Lazy tactics you’d think. But no, Diddy knows best.
“We did not play a huge game but we showed mental quality,” trilled Deschamps. “And we scored four goals anyway,” he honked, while flying through the Moscow air mid-bump. OK, so their first was an own goal and their second came via a farcical VAR-impacted penalty in which the referee watched the telly for the same duration of time as an episode of Emmerdale, but let’s not dwell on the facts. When Kylian Mbappé and Paul Pogba blasted home the third and fourth in style, it allowed Hugo Lloris to inject some physical comedy into proceedings with a slapstick six-yard box shimmy that gifted Croatia a goal and perhaps made Loris Karius come out in cold sweats.
Not that everyone thought the final was as much of a hoot as we did. “We played well and played the best football and he gives a penalty to them. It kills you,” sniffed Luka Modric, as Dejan Lovren snapped a collection of Pussy Riot CDs into a million bits behind him. “I think we were the better team but sometimes better teams don’t win.” At least Modric can console himself with the Golden Ball, having been named player of the tournament after beating off strong competition from Eden Hazard, Mbappé and Vlad Putin’s Umbrella Guy.
But the most miraculous thing about Ethics 2018 is how a tournament packed to the rafters with long throws, free-kicks, solid teamwork and corners still managed to deliver such high drama. If our tactics-obsessed cousin, Double Pivot Fiver, took a look back at the on-field trends, they’d determine it could have been curated by Tony Pulis. Possession? Pah! Individual brilliance? Do one! Perhaps we were all hypnotised in the opening ceremony. Because even England were fun to watch and, apart from against that Panama Pub XI, they hardly had a shot on target. Forget Pep. We’re heading into football’s Era of Pulis. Thanks, Russia. K’tish!
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We didn’t give up. We just don’t have the quality to run for 90 minutes at such tempo and speed like Everton. It looks like we gave up but this isn’t so. They are faster, stronger and better than us at everything” – ATV Irdning captain Hannes Wallner defends their display in Everton’s hard-fought 22-0 pre-season win.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Here’s the final World Cup Football Daily podcast, with Max Rushden and co. The pod will be back for the new season soon.
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Producing the Guardian’s thoughtful, in-depth journalism [the stuff not normally found in this email, obviously – Fiver Ed] is expensive, but supporting us isn’t. If you value our journalism, please support us. In return we can hopefully arm you with the kind of knowledge that makes you sound slightly less uninformed during those hot reactive gegenpress chats you so enjoy. And if you think what we do is enjoyable [again, etc and so on – Fiver Ed], please help us keep coming back here to give you more of the same.
FIVER LETTERS
“In hindsight, we should have known England and Belgium would come up just a little short in this World Cup. Between them they fielded no fewer than eight current and two former Spurs players in their semis” – Adam Bacon.
“With apologies to Terry Cashman. To be sung in tune with this:
Well Didier had done it
The French Team, they had won it
Modric he was running all the while
Lloris’ awful howler made us smile
And the English wondering if this was all worthwhile …
We’re talking football
Madrid to Sarajevo
We’re talking football
Messi and [Him]
Germans and an early exit door
Neymar and his run-in with the floor
We’re talking flags, goals, players and a ball …
[and repeat]” – Luke Justus.
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 … Luke Justus.
BITS AND BOBS
Six Paris métro stations have had their names changed for the day to commemorate France’s World Cup winners (Victor Hugo Lloris, Didier Deschamps-Elysées, etc), while Southgate tube station in London has also been temporarily prefaced.
Harry Kane, the Oleg Salenko de nos jours, reckons he’s proved that he can perform on every major stage in football after winning the Golden Boot. “I’m extremely proud and I’m sure I’ll look back in a few weeks’ time and take all these experiences in,” he enthused.
Nothing says the World Cup is over quite like Jack Rodwell going on trial to Watford.
Gareth Bale is set to be handed the challenge of stepping into His shoes at Real Madrid, what with Him being unveiled by Juventus in Turin later on Monday.
West Brom have completed the £4m signing of defender Kyle Bartley from Swansea. “After speaking with Darren [Moore] I knew this was the place I wanted to be,” he cheered.
And Fulham teenager Benjamin Davis, the first Singaporean player to sign for a Premier League club, has been told by the country’s government to do his military service. “It’s not something we would want to consider, but at the end of the day, if it’s something that is put on the table and forced to consider if he’s not deferred, we have to make the decision to the best interest of our child,” said his father Harvey. “People tell us it’s not a big deal, to come back, serve in the army and go back [to play in the Premier League]. There is no going back, it doesn’t work like that.”
STILL WANT MORE?
It’s Big Website writers’ highs and lows from Russia 2018.
It’s the big World Cup 2018 quiz.
How claustrophobic football saw off tiki-taka. By Jorge Valdano.
From doubted to dominator: the World Cup evolution of Paul Pogba. By Amy Lawrence.
Croatia’s World Cup run must bring end to game’s neglect back home, writes Alex Holiga.
Barney Ronay on Kylian Mbappé, the top ticket in France’s seemingly bottomless collection of talent.
#Scenes in Paris. #Scenes in Moscow.
17 things we learned from the Ethics World Cup.
Will Jesse Marsch’s move to Europe stop the jokes about coaches from USA! USA!! USA!!!?
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!
