While all this is the modus vivendi in the capital’s political circus, the ceilings of some rented houses are also falling. This means we now have to fix it, first by applying Plaster of Paris and then painting. Unfortunately, I had to spend some time watching paint dry, an activity I enjoy, because it couldn’t be more boring than watching. England here Euro 2024.
When the most neutral and even those of the English persuasion, have been looking at the English pedantic show, the tactics of the football basement, who spend all the time in the basements of his mother playing Football Manager, counting xGs and arguing about the benefits of inside forwards over traditional wingers . may know that there is a way to Gareth Southgate‘s apparently meandering madness.
Football comes in many forms.
As Jose Mourinho explained to Ted Lasso in a football commercial, there are different types of football.
Jose Mourinho Explains Football to a Confused Ted Lasso
Sometimes you have possession-based tiki taka that seems to pass the ball to death before scoring.
Then you’ve won the Champions League on the counter-attack with a quick transition that usually raises Carlo Ancelotti’s eyebrows.
You have
gegenpressing
– popularized by former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp – which focuses on counter-pressing to counter counter-attacks.
Then you have the Italian style of death by defense or as Mourinho likes to do when he still has his footballing heritage: bus parking.
In the old days in England – when they had a Queen instead of a King – you had a style of aerial football where you held the ball high up the middle and hoped for the best which led former Champions League winning manager Brian Clough to say with disdain: “If God Allah wants us to play football in the clouds, he will put grass there.”
You have Era Busby simple football where you win the ball, you pass the ball, and score goals and then do not embellish it some good name.
Total football or in the original Dutch
totalvoetbal
emphasizing a style of play where everyone on the field can do every other player’s job. That means defenders can play as forwards and vice versa with Johan Cruyff the most famous supporter.
But what we are witnessing in Gareth Southgate is the opposite: Total Non-Football.
Total Non-Football hinges on forwards unable to attack, defenders unable to defend and midfielders ambling about in a clueless way. It depends on boring the enemy to death before knocking them out. With the benefit of hindsight, it was a tactical masterclass, a Trojan horse trick straight out of it
Iliad.
Play in a way that you don’t know – as inspired by the skits of Laurie and Fry – so that you can damage the opposition team so that they don’t damage their weapons before they beat them one-two. It’s similar to the famous rope-a-dope football trick used by Muhammad Ali against George Foreman at The Rumble in the Jungle where Ali waited on the ropes as his opponent exhausted himself before defeating him.
Total Non Football
It was a trick that England used to perfection against Slovakia who had already scored on 25Th minutes and wondering what will happen as there is no indication that the English players can – or even want – to score.
Harry Kane, who scored 44 goals for Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga this season and is still suffering from Tottenham-itis as his failure to win a single trophy seems too much. It is unclear whether Gareth Southgate wants him to play as a number 9, number 10 or as a hybrid. Kane seems to have decided to answer the question by not playing football.
Phil Foden, Major League Player of the Season, being forced to play on the left instead of the right he likes suddenly looks like a lost Centrist feeling under siege like France’s new politics. It seems he has never seen football before in his life or he has forgotten the basic program coded by Pep Guardiola.
Jude Bellingham, the best player in La Liga, fresh from winning the Champions League and La Liga with Real Madrid, where he scored 23 goals while wearing Zinedine Zidane‘s vaunted number 5, it looks like he has no idea what to do with the ball if he has or if it is even worth passing to the player.
Behind him Declan Rice, who had a great season at Arsenal, walked like a Bengali who helped himself to his favorite wheat for lunch and was forced to work when he would rather sleep dreaming of collective work. Karl Marx.
Kieran Tripper, playing on the left rather than his preferred right, was constantly caught in defense and added to the attack before being struck down with injury.
John Stones, who has secured under Pep Guardiola, is rude and ignorant.
Strangely, the only player who seemed to care was youngster Kobie Mainoo who was still excited at the thought of wearing an England shirt without the proverbial albatross around his neck.
England failed to reach their target of 95Th minutes and somehow suddenly when all hope was lost, and Gareth Southgate was just about to hug Godot, Kyle Walker opened a long ball that Guehi flicked to no one certain Bellingham sprung to a classic bicycle kick to make it 1-1. It was the latest goal scored by England in any tournament in injury time. A minute into extra time, Harry Kane popped up to score a header and from there England went on to win the match and go on to face Switzerland in the quarter finals.
Now, many will claim that this was pure luck, but true football experts will know what a masterstroke we are witnessing. The fact is that since Gareth Southgate came to power – thanks to Big Sam Allardyce’s propensity for telling the truth while drinking wine from a pint – the English team has tried to play well and win. It has been seen that they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup and the final of the last Euros, but they always fell short ahead of the final hurdle. A mediocre player who was scorned for missing a penalty against Argentina in the 1998 shootout, the British media – as they always do when they see a potential white savior – made him into a messianic figure they could pull off. the sword came out of the stone. The reality is that England have performed better – a result of Southgate – than all previous managers barring Sir Alf Ramsey. Southgate’s team had reached the semi-finals of the World Cup and the final of the Euros before losing. He has won more losing games than any other coach before him. He has done so while playing a pragmatic style of play focused on defense first. But perhaps, the time has come not to play at all and win. Because sports, like life is a random cruelty. The best team never wins.
Paddy Power and Scotland 😆 #scotland #paddypower
In their 1981 cult hit, British punk rock band The Clash asked: “Should I stay, or should I go?”. Every football fan – neutral, Western European, Balkan, and especially Irish, Scottish, and Welsh, and everyone watching around the world, wants England to go. However, Southgate and co have refused to bond so far.
Perhaps, the enemy has an appointment in Samarra. Often referred to as the oldest story in the world, Appointment in Samarra is a short story of a young servant who runs to Death in a market in Baghdad. Out of fear, the slave borrowed a horse from his master and rode to Samarra. Later, the master ran to the same figure and asked why he threatened his servant and Pati told him: “It was not a threatening gesture. It was just the beginning of a surprise. I was surprised to see him in Bagdad, because I had promised him that night in Samarra. Who knows , maybe England’s opponents in the Euro tournament have an appointment in Samarra. And with Gareth Southgate and the dead England team.
