Who in their right mind would want to replace Gareth Southgate as England boss?

Why would any sane person in their right mind want the f*cking job?

In becoming the England manager you expose yourself to never ceasing, merciless, vitriolic criticism not only from every journalist and pundit walking the face of the earth who has ever waved the cross of St George but a rabid fan base which demands justification for every move you make and then continues to ridicule you for your choices, it requires you to counsel young men, particularly young men of color, to try and ignore the spittle flecked, racist abuse they receive for trying their best, it requires they comfort their families who are also the target of this abuse, and to put in place measures to assure their family members’ safety, and more than anything to not just meet but more than exceed the unrealistic expectations of a nation.

A bit like becoming Prime Minister and look who you end up with there.
JH Aruba

Boycott status
My personal boycott is ongoing. I’d say it is going “well” but it’s a boycott which makes it rather binary.

For reference (because everyone’s personal version of boycotting can vary somewhat in how it is undertaken), my boycott is as thus; I have not watched any of the coverage or highlights reels etc. I have listened to many of the matches on Radio 5Live. In doing this I have given no chance for the companies who sponsor this tournament to get their hooks into me. Likewise, I’m choosing to avoid purchasing any item that has any claim to being a partner of FIFA or the 2022 World Cup. You could say that I’m voting with my wallet. (I also don’t own a TV licence).

In my own humble opinion, it is neither the players’ fault nor the fans fault that this tournament is being held in a country with an appalling human rights record. Nor is it their fault that the stadia have been built by the hands of effective slave labour in terrible conditions resulting in many hundreds of deaths that wouldn’t have occurred in a more developed nation. The blame for these things lies both with FIFA and the Qatari governance, neither of whom have much to do with football. I have chosen my way to respond to these facts, as each individual has the right to do.

Your whataboutery regarding the Moroccan team’s progress is somewhat confusing. Are you equating recognition of their football team’s sporting prowess with acceptance of their country’s unjust laws around LGBTQ lifestyles? Or is your point that Morrocco shouldn’t have been permitted entry into the tournament on such grounds?

I won’t claim to speak for anyone else, boycotting or otherwise, but perhaps the reason we’ve gone quiet is because we’ve said all that there is to say on the matter. Your attempt to lash out at ‘progressives’ suggest a guilt complex for enjoying the football. I’d say this though and I mean this in all sincerity, don’t be. Football is meant to be enjoyed and, as I said before, it is not your fault that the World Cup is in Qatar. Just don’t fall victim to the sportswashing that is going on around you. Be aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice). In other words, be woke.

Thanks & enjoy the final
Thom, Bristol-based Spur

Good luck, Leeds
For all the talk about a World Cup Winner going to play Brentford away.

Spare a thought for Leeds:

Erling Haaland, has had 46 Days between games. 46 Days to think about, 1) failing to get on the scoresheet last time out, 2) being on the wrong end of a 2-1 result, 3) not being at the World Cup.

He’ll also probably get a loosener (as if he needs it!) 6 days prior in the EFL Cup.
Nick (I’m predicting a Hat Trick in the first 15mins) J

A golden age
Putting the geopolitical aspects of this World Cup aside, we should maybe pause for a moment and consider all the World Class stars who we will most likely never see grace the World stage again; Messi, Ronaldo, Cavani, Modric, Suarez, Maguire (just kidding!), Neymar, to name just a few.

As the game becomes more scientific, more organized, more rigid, I wonder who is going to take up the mantle of Superstar, Showman, Villian, etc. The next major International competition is some way off but looking at the current crop of players, there seems to me to be a paucity of individual, outstanding talent. Perhaps the Messi / Ronaldo rivalry spolied us.

Meanwhile Real Madrid, Barcelona, etc. continue to hoover up any and all talent that shows the slightest chance of blossoming, leaving the vast majority of teams fighting over crumbs. $50M for Gakpo? 60M for Endrick? Even my beloved Manchester United can no longer compete.

Women’s Football is really beginning to look like a viable and entertaing alternative.
Adidasmufc (Can United’s women team please play their home games at Old Trafford?)

Ladder thoughts
Was reading the new England ladder and it occurred to me that, on an 18-month timeline, the midfield spots in the England squad (with the exception of Rice and Bellingham) are absolutely there for the taking.

Henderson, Phillips and Mount are considered established players right now, but all 3 are facing huge turning points in their career:\

Henderson is still superb, but he’s at the age where you have to prove your sharpness/fitness month-by-month. Every injury or spell on the bench for Liverpool will raise questions.
Phillips looks in serious danger of having injuries and competition for minutes curtail his career. I can’t think of another senior England player whose future I’m less certain about. Could be a Scott Parker, could be an Owen Hargreaves.
Mount I’m less worried about, but he’s at a difficult age where he needs to convert early promise into consistent, game-turning class. I back him to do it but you do see players who emerge young hit a wall here.

To that end, I think there are 3, maybe even 4, CM places in the Euro 2024 26 that are anyone’s to claim. Some players not the ladder that I’d tip to be very much a part of that battle:

Emile Smith-Rowe. Playing at a level ahead of Gallagher and Elliott when fit, and if he recaptures his pre-injury form should be mentioned in the same talant-bracket as Mount. He was on the cusp of that before he was sidelined.
Sean Longstaff. Would be very surprised if he isn’t capped at some point in the next 6-12 months, given he’s 25 and playing regularly and well as a pure CM for a top 4 team (and is comfortable as a holding mid).
Ruben Loftus-Cheek. Somehow still only 26 and appears to be a regular for Chelsea under Potter. If that persists until the next squad announcement, I think he’s surely worth a recall.
+ few outside bets I wouldn’t necessarily have in the top 50, but could make a bolt for the squad with better form or minutes: Curtis Jones, Lewis Cook, Harrison Reed, Oliver Skipp.

Finally, among those in the ladder and those that I’ve mentioned, I want to highlight a subgroup: Loftus-Cheek, Curtis Jones, Lewis Cook and Harvey Elliott. What these four all have going for them is that they’re first-and-foremost technical players, who are true midfielders: not forwards, not destroyers. Tempo-setters. This is something England, with the exception perhaps of Henderson and Bellingham (and even they are more in the chest-thumping, Stevie G mould), sorely lack, and have lacked for some time. England coaches haven’t always recognized the value of this type of player, but I think they’re on high alert for one now. If any English midfielder starts to look even slightly cut from that cloth – the Pirlo/Kroos/Modric variety – I think they rocket up the ladder.
Thom

Opinion, not analysis
Several emails in the Friday morning mailbox depict the same thing. Someone with a pre-existing viewpoint or bias will keep trotting out the same data and ‘analyse’ it to show their point of view. Of course, like most emails, it’s never a proper analysis. It is like having a pretty image behind you when reading your opinion to somehow make it seem more important.

Howard clearly has a bias against Southgate. I would think that even if Southgate won a tournament, Howard would claim it was simply what was expected, so therefore, not an achievement.

Using FIFA rankings, especially from the past, to determine if someone over or under achieves is a waste of time, as we know, these rankings are not scientific in any way. This is why FIFA modified them more recently. Hence using older rankings compared to newer rankings is a waste of time. We also have better quality rankings now from places like Gracenote. Regardless, international tournaments are a different beast from a league or even the Champion’s league (with home and away ties and time to choose and buy players and prep your team.) There is luck. The luck of the draw, getting the right officials, players being available, a single player playing out of their skull against you in one game, a penalty miss.

The same is true of comments regarding players or implying someone is world-class or not world-class.

Is Messi better than Ronaldo? This will run forever, not because the data people spout to support their argument is better or worse but because it is simply a backdrop to support their opinion – which is never changing.

As for the debate on whether a player is world-class or not. I think it would be fair to say this term was trotted out by a pundit years ago to support some opinion without having to properly analyse the data, and is over-used today. It is meaningless. Badwolf deserves some credit for trying to define it, but it will still fall into the trap of being used as a backdrop to make your opinion. But seriously, the idea that Kane, for example, couldn’t be ‘world-class’ because there is one player who has scored more, is ludicrous. If they chose Ronaldo, that would mean Benzema, Lewandowski, and Mbappe could also never be called world-class.

While we see better punditry and analysis today from the likes of Michael Cox or Jonathan Wilson, for example, football is unfortunately always going to be mired in this soup of meaningless phrases.
Paul McDevitt

Media awards
As we approach the final, the alternative review of the World Cup so far…

Best Picture: BBC. iPlayer has continued it’s incredible detail on a 4K UHD stream which has been much more reliable than Euro 2021. It should be the base standard, and of course you do see about 30-45 second delay to a standard stream, but it really is the only way to watch the World Cup. ITV Freeview has been surprisingly decent this time round as well; at least I’ve had nothing to complain about.

Best App: itvX – Going to give the edge to ITV here for fixing the bane of our existence that was ITV Hub, and coming up with an app that got released just before the World Cup started and miraculously has been rock solid across any platform you can think of. I’ve tested across Android, iOS and Kindle Fire and it’s worked perfectly each and every time. Well done!

Best Sound: Thumbs down all round here. Same thing as always, BBC’s engineers can’t figure out the basics of a Dolby Digital soundtrack to go through iPlayer. So you have to pick from Freeview + 5.1, or 4K + 2.0. We live in a world where a Premiership game in 4K + Dolby Atmos is easily available. Why we’re downgrading for the biggest international tournaments is beyond me.

Best Radio Commentary: I confess I have only listened to 5Live, so it’s by default here. But on the few occasions I was doing school runs and unable to watch the games, 5Live did a lovely job of setting the scene.

Best Podcast: The Guardian’s Football Weekly just get it spot on. Max Rushden owns this space now, Barry Glendenning is his perfect foil and the guests are perfectly matched. The Chesney Hawkes vs Szczesny mixup was genuinely hilarious. Not sure what’s happened to The Totally Football Show but it’s is really struggling, and not even the brilliance of James Richardson can hold it up anymore. It’s sluggish, the co-leads and guests display a staggering lack of enthusiasm and there’s not much by way of actual insight.

The BBC have lagged as well on the Podcast front. BBC Sounds should be an easy go-to place to hear some decent analysis. But the recordings in the immediate aftermath of a game are very blah.

Best Highlights Packages: BBC solely for the fact that they’ve edited the reels just right, they get the 3 min highlights packages up pretty quick on iPlayer, and the extended programmes in the evenings do the job…but Mark Chapman is holding it up almost singlehandedly with almost no help whatsoever from his co-anchors (Dion Dublin was laughable the other night and clearly unprepped on the basics).

Best Co-Commentator: None of them. They’ve all been utterly terrible across both platforms.

Best Celebration: The Henderson/Bellingham death/love stare was too good.
Sandeep (Waiting patiently for the epic montages).

Morocco pride
A quick reply to Mike in the mailbox. It would be easy to dismiss his email as a disingenuous attempt to own the libs by a hateful right-wing dingbat. At first read the points about the people who were boycotting this world cup and then the take down, of the feel good story of this world cup, Morocco due to their horrendous LGBTQ+ rights would seem to be the grinchiest of takes but wait.

What if Mike is just a massive supporter of Gay rights?

Perhaps he is legimately upset at the hypocrisy of enjoying an underdog story? I for one applaud Mike for his extensive googling and for holding the website that printed his missive to account.

I fully appreciate that the world today can be a frightening and confusing place so let me assure you Mike that while it still might be illegal to be gay in the country of Morocco this is recognised as being a backward stance by the people of Morocco. There are groups who are fighting against this such as Kif-Kif or Nassawiyat. Also worth noting that since the 50s Morocco has been a centre for gender affirmation surgery. I am sure Mike knows that Morocco has a long and complicated history with LGBTQ rights and is politically a bit of a mess but I am glad he is keeping an eye on their development.

Morocco is a little behind more modern countries such as America, where the next world cup is ,which had a massacre at a gay club two weeks ago and had to reinforce the legality of same sex marriage, in the face of right wing attempts to outlaw it, just this week. Even in the wonderful and progressive country I live in now, Scotland, there is currently a sustained and vociferous campaign against Trans rights.

I hear you Mike! We have to hold all countries to account. I have to say, when this world cup started I never thought that Morocco would be, at the minimum, the fourth best team in the world. Even more unlikely was the conversion of people who previously had no interest in Gay rights into their strongest activists. Best World Cup ever!
Kal Skye ( Oh the power of unintended consequences)

A victory for Africa?
A repairman was at our home yesterday. From his appearance and accent I arrived at a safe conclusion that he’s originally from Africa. He was. So I asked how he felt about Morocco’s success in the World Cup. His immediate response was “They’re not Africa. They have never done anything for the continent”. I was surprised, but I understand. I’m originally from Asia and if Japan or South Korea made it to the semi-finals or finals, big deal for them, but I couldn’t feel any different about it. Not for the same reason as “they’ve not done anything for Asia”… that is factually incorrect and literally wrong for every country in the world. However, the concept of continent is too large. Anyone else felt that the “the first African country” is more a marketing thing than a genuine feeling?
Anon (football does not owe anyone anything… we’re just a speck of dust on a random planet in a random galaxy… won’t matter in a million years).

World Cup XI
At the start of the current world cup we had a mailboxer talk about the idea of a team made up of 11 players, all from a different country, all from a different tournament.

As this is now my 11th World Cup as a fan (I was obviously an extremely young child in 1982…) here’s my team. No discussion or reasoning. Lots of my heroes didn’t make the list (love you Lilian),but the team works. See what you think.

Goalkeeper – Yassine Bounou – Morocco 2022

Right Back – Philipp Lahm – Germany 2014

Centre Back – Carles Puyol – Spain 2010

Centre Back – Jaap Stam – Netherlands 1998

Left Back – Stuart Pearce – England 1990

Defensive Midfielder – Claude Makelele – France 2006

Left Midfield – Luca Modric – Croatia 2018

Right Midfield – Gheorghe Hagi – Romania 1994

Attacking Midfield – Diego Maradona – Argentina 1986

Striker – Paolo Rossi – Italy 1982

Striker – Ronaldo – Brazil 2002

Cheers
Andy (CFC NZ)

New cup?
thought the media would be all over this by now.

With an Argentina v France final, we are now guaranteed that a nation will win their third trophy.
Brazil got to keep the Jules Rimet trophy after their 1970 victory.
Will the winners on Sunday get to keep this trophy and signal a new trophy for 2026?
I dread to think what a new one would look like.
Peter B

Worldies
World Class. Definition: A player who can walk straight into the starting lineup of any club in the world. Period.
Using that metric, Mbappe is definitely world class, he’d walk straight into any team in the world. Bellingham too. Also Haaland. Even if it means changing your system. Next question…
Gitonga

…I must respond to a comment from Badwolf in Friday morning’s mailbox. I agree with a lot of what he said, with the exception of his categorisation of Alan Shearer. A man who turned down my club, not once but twice. A man who almost singlehandedly cost my club at least one league title. So it’s fair to say, he was not a man I was fond of when he was a player. However, to describe him as ‘International Class’ is way short of the mark. In my lifetime, in pure striking terms, there haven’t been many who could hold a candle to him in the English game

Fans are so partisan from a club perspective. They see their players week in, week out and often form opinions on the skill level of a player, by their feelings towards the club they play for. Many United fans (ridiculously tbh) didn’t ‘rate’ Gerrard, when he was so obviously the best player for our greatest rival. So the definition of Class can be highly subjective.

I despised Shearer at the time, but god I wanted him to sign for Manchester United and was gutted when he didn’t. So much as to say that I feel we would be one or two league titles and possibly a Champions League or two better off had he signed for us. Anyone that could make the Fergie United Team of the time markedly better than it already was, would have to have been top drawer. Shearer for me was about as top drawer as it gets and in my opinion, was absolutely World Class.

It’s all about opinions…