Ok, I have to pop by to write about the footy. Can't resist.
This will possibly age extremely badly and quickly, but it feels like football's coming home in a way that it never felt before. There is something in the air; the stories unfolding, the drama, the decades-long rivalries - hell, the geography has a tale to tell.
It is the 60th year since our last victory
That's an insane length of time to be constantly humbled and humiliated.
30 years ago we made a song about our, at that time, 30 years of humiliation. It is the song the whole world knows and hates (unless you're English and therefore love). It's Coming Home.
We have to adjust the song every decade. And the decades keep coming. It is perhaps the most well known football song in history. And man, the feeling of the room when you're in a sports bar and England scores, or even wins, and you hear the opening of that song... the atmosphere is unreal.
If we win, on the 60th anniversary of being losers, the song could finally be put to bed and everyone would be happy.
Colonial Powers & War
For a World Cup win to happen In The USA? That would be so fucking tasty. The mockery, the fuel to take back the United States under the crown. Hilarious.
But it doesn't end there. We blasted through Norway, the Vikings who about 900 years ago attempted to colonise us, and ultimately failed, but have threatened us from up north ever since. Well, we sent them rowing back to their little slab of ice just like we did back then.
Argentina, our next battle, hours from now, have a long, storied history with us in football. Things between us get very heated historically. The most infamous Hand of God that gave the Argent's their victory against us back in 1986. Basically they threw the goal in with a hand ball and conveniently not a single person saw it happen, and thus allowed to goal. There was not VAR at the time so, yeah. That is where relations started to melt - not helped at all by the still very fresh in memory literal war we had for the Falkland Islands, a war which we completely annihilated Argentina and caused their entire government to collapse, although they did sink a couple of our nice ships.
In fairness they did go on about 5 minutes later to score what is now historically known as the Goal of the Century which was a legit-as-hell goal.
A later game broke into a fight, on pitch, so bad that Argentina punched two teeth out of one of our players, and he still bears the scars on his fist to this day.
Then, another infamous incident with David Beckham who was fouled. He retaliated with a kick. The original foul got off free while David got a red card. And then lost. He then went on to accomplish a glorious payback victory 6 years later.
Now, people high up in Argentina are re-discussing 'taking back' the Falklands. Fun fact, they never had it to begin with.
If we actually do get through Messi - And I do believe it's possible; Argentina are playing pretty poorly overall, only winning in extra time against Switzerland - We then have Spain. SPAIN. What diabolical monsters could casually toss France to the side with little more than a few tiki-taki ballet moves with the ball. France were barely more than a part of the audience in last night's game.
But, much like we destroyed their 130-strong fleet of ships in the 1500's Anglo-Spanish war, their invincible Armada will make mistakes, and we will exploit it. And we might even get a win out of it. They humbled us in the Euro's Final of 2024, they defeated France three times now. They've had their time in the spotlight! Move over!
Geographic Pain
There was so much tension in the days before Mexico, playing in the Azteca Stadium over 2,000 metres high in altitude. People all over, including the BBC, were testing its effects on people's ability to maintain endurance and speed and it was demonstrably a massive disadvantage, as the Mexicans had had forever for their bodies to acclimate and adjust to the way the ball moved faster in the air. Of about 90 matches Mexico played in that stadium over decades, they had lost two. That's quite a record that needed smashing.
Well, England just came in, took it on the chin and smashed their little stadium record into little chunks - in one of the best games I've ever seen.
Then of course everyone has to deal with the heat of the USA, Florida and such, with some days having a feel of 40C+ and humidity through the roof. To be running around in those conditions constantly? Agonising.
Cheating Argentinians
They have become the main villain in the game for everyone, not just England. The conspiracy is so strong that it seems like the majority of people believe it now. Memes, videos, AI, jokes galore about FIFA favouriting Messi and his team above all else. But the numbers seem to back it up.
They have the lowest yellow card-to-foul ratio of any team. Every time they foul, nothing happens. England, incidentally, has the highest. They get a yellow card for every tiny infraction.
They have also had every single VAR decision go in their favour. INCIDENTALLY, England has had among the worst outcomes of VAR (The slow mo hi-tec camera to check details of events).
The game against Egypt was so out of order that the Egyptian manager has filed formal complaints and investigations into FIFA, the CEO of which has openly said he supports Argentina and wants them to win.
Our Referee in the match tonight just happens to be one who has reffed many an Argentinian game. Not one of his games has Argentina ever lost.
Very convenient. So we all feel like we're already at a massive disadvantage; we not only have to defeat Argentina, but their FIFA backers, too.
Amazing Friendships
Bellingham, I honestly didn't know him until this tournament but what a fine chap. As it turns out, he's basically best friends with Haaland, a Golden Boot potential in the Norway team, a monster Viking player famous for being carefree, stronger than he's aware, and pretty funny. The two of them actually play together in national teams but they have quite a bromance. If you watch carefully even in our game competing against each other, they were laughing, hugging, poking each other during free kicks. They have a long history of excellent teamwork together.
Bellingham again with Kane, the England captain, have also made a stunning duo, BOTH now contenders for the Golden Boot, both having scored 6 goals (although it'll be hard now to beat Mbappe or Messi's 8 goals). We're the only team with two players ranked up the top there - in many statistics, actually.
It takes Tuchel to Tango
The new coach, a German of all things, is something else. The team's previous guy, Gareth Southgate, although vilified for being soft and playing boring, took us further in every tournament than we had gotten in decades. But he did more than that. He set the stage with this team. Now, Tuchel has taken over and he sees the power of what he has in front of him.
His approach is much more aggressive and utilises players best suited to a teamwork model, rather than with, say, Argentina, who just build their entire team around making Messi get his goal opportunities. I have no idea if it will ultimately be the success, but we literally just made it to the Semi Finals for the first time using his methods, so I'm feeling hopeful. This is the first major tournament under this guy and I like him a lot, despite being German.
Do we stand a chance?
I am no expert. But I have been nerding out about this for a few days and I honestly think we have a chance - at least against Argentina.
Not only have they been performing poorly, but Messi, let's not forget, is my age. He's an old man. Two thirds of his entire time in game has been spent walking. He's not expressed any truly god-like shots or dribbles like in his younger days. Everything he has done seems rather mortal.
And even then, he still dominates his team stats, from goals to assists and passes and so on. This just means the rest of the team kind of sucks. England really just has to deal with this one monster lurking in the front lines. If they can deal with that, Spain will be facing Kane, Gordon, Rice and Bellingham.
Can we beat Spain? Ehhhh... probably not.
But we have an almost infinitely higher chance than we would have against France. For days I've been begging at Spain to win this. We needed them to win, and they delivered.
France's style just does not gel with Spain's. Spain's style and strategy has answers for everything France could throw at them.
But paradoxically, Spain's style isn't that strong against England's style, while England's style is essentially useless against France.
It's notable that Spain only drew 1-1 against Cape Verde of all teams. Sure, they switched some players out because it was an early game, but they struggled immensely with their highly defensive style. They simply couldn't cut through their thick wall of players.
France is very forward-focused with Mbappe topping runs - WITH the ball at his feet throwing it left, right, through legs - at 38km/h. For reference, elite 100m sprint athletes hit about 42km/h - without a ball. And he sustains that kind of speed for the entire duration of the game.
But if Spain just doesn't give them the ball to begin with, France is completely disarmed. And Spain are much, much better than France at keeping the ball.
But they're not so good with head-on battles and exhausting pressure, something England does very well.
That being said, The team is evolving and last night's game showed their weaknesses might be being dealt with. If so, Spain are basically unstoppable. They've already hit a 37-win streak, matching all times records of win streaks in football history.
Are England really going to put an end to that? Well, we should probably worry about Argentina first. A match against Spain still feels far, far away.
Honestly, these Semi Finals feel MORE consequential, epic and exciting than the Final feels. This is one for the ages.
Everyone thought Mexico was the toughest match, but we pulled through, not with flying colours, but we proved we could do it under the toughest conditions. Winning Argentina is not impossible. Like you say, the team is built around Messi, we need the defence line to be ultra focused. Then let Kane and Bellingham do their job. Easy peasy!!!
A lot of people are saying the new Tuchel basically built the team specifically around fighting France, Spain and Argentina since the new rules meant they couldn't meet each other until the semi's regardless.
So, cruise through the lesser countries and then tonight will be the first and maybe only time we'll see them put it all together.
Could all be BS of course and we just chaotically muddle our way through 90 minutes in the usual less-than-ideal way... They're certainly masters of creating heart palpitations in me when watching them stumble and fumble from start to finish!
3.5 more hours... I should have a nap. 3am start for me X-(
Muddling through, as long as they get through works for me 💪
Bring it home!!!!
At least it didn't go to penalties -- Jamie nearly has a heart attack when it gets that tense. As soon as England got the goal I thought faaaark look out, Argentina is going to wipe the floor with them...
I don't even think that happened. The general consensus is that England did what they always do after scoring first; sit back and just hope the opponent can't get through their little defensive block.
Which is especially stupid against Argentina XD
Ah, in the end it felt like a fairly uncontroversial semi. I'm glad not to have to wake up at 5am next week though here in Australia - we'll chime in when we wake up at 6 and catch the last of it, and hope it doesn't go to penalities so we can make it to work.
I love the world cup so much - it does what it says, re connecting people, but then we don't have Argentinians as neighbours, haha, only a French woman who we have not seen since they lost. We could only dream of France v England to drink wine with the neighbours, but what a pipe dream.
Don't Argentians have a religion around football? As in, literally, the Maradonian church? :P
I loved the camera pan to the ecstatic Argentinian fans and the crying English knights. Two polar emotions.
I love how you get history, politics, sport, everything in the world game. Bring on the next four years.
My English husband isn't too sad - he thinks England did well to get where they were, and they could never beat Argentina.
There was a massive bar fight at the end of the game, with a Chinese man hating on foreigners for some random reason - totally unrelated to the football lol, but it softened the blow with a sufficient distraction that had the police come round.
I'm also please I don't need to do that again because it's already wrecked my sleeping pattern, urgh.
Hah, you mean like the Argentinians setting fire to our flag, spitting and stamping on them, and having threatening signs about killing us? Lovely people eh! Then again if anyone has a fun drama reason to do that it's them.
Yeah I mean it was a fun journey and we'd only get disappointed against Spain a few days later so it's no biggy. I'm just annoyed because they failed for the same reason they always fail. Everyone thought it was the previous manager's weak, boring and defensive style, Tuchel being more aggressive and such. But the exact same thing happens even under him, so it's just an inherent failure built into the team for some reason they can't shake.
Basically, score one goal, then defend for the rest of the game until the opponent scores.
If they just lost fair and square in a solid battle of two greats, I'd be super satisfied.
Also pretty annoyed that there's an entire 1:15 video compilation of every foul Argentina committed, some of them clearly red card offences, and had nothing happen to them. One was 5 seconds before they scored a goal.
But then we knew that was going to happen going in...