20 June ~ With Euro 2016 nearly halfway though and the Champions League, FA and Scottish Cup finals barely behind us, it feels like the entire planet wants to attend a football match. Huge, packed venues dominate the media. And all I do is rue the fact I’ve never been in a six-figure crowd and that no ground in Europe can currently hold one.
19 June ~ “The glass is half full” declared “Nati” coach, Vladimir Petkovic, after the 1-1 draw with Romania in Paris. Petkovic’s comment captured the almost unanimous verdict across Switzerland on the team’s performance so far. The positives are that the Swiss have controlled large parts of their games against Albania and Romania and are on course to qualify for the second round of a European Championship for the first time ever.
18 June ~ It’s open season on Marc Wilmots in Belgium. The Red Devils’ inept display against Italy highlighted the national coach’s tactical frailties – nothing new there – but, to make matters worse, Wilmots doesn’t seem to see anything wrong with his strategy, or lack thereof. “I don’t think Italy won a tactical battle,” he told national broadcaster RTBF.
The unseen story behind England’s World Cup glory
by John Rowlinson
Virgin Books, £20
Reviewed by David Stubbs
From WSC 352 June 2016
One of the recurring themes of this volume to commemorate the 50th anniversary of England’s sole international triumph is how relatively little was made of it at the time. Kenneth Wolstenholme’s famous “They think it’s all over; it is now” line epitomises the phlegmatic, English reserve that prevented too much of the sort of histrionic reaction that would prevail nowadays. Were England to win the World Cup today, you suspect Jonathan Pearce’s head would, literally, explode. Not then.
