An occasional 2022 World Cup diary.
Don’t get too excited: there won’t always be two World Cup diaries on the same day. Some days, perhaps lots of days in a row, there won’t be any. But England have played, haven’t they, so I thought I would write something to try to keep me awake during the Netherlands v Senegal match.
Twitter was definitely at its worst this morning and this afternoon, once it became clear that World Cup captains would not be wearing the One Love armband. And who was to blame? Why, Harry Kane, of course. He was Gary Glitter and Jimmy Savile combined. Well, he did invent Qatar, didn’t he?
As soon as the captains of seven teams, including ours, were threatened – there is no other word to describe it – with disciplinary action if they wore armbands, we knew the game was up. Yellow cards, maybe even a ban. Which is when twitter lost its collective marbles. Kane was weak, gutless and had been put to shame by the Iranian players who refused to sing their national anthem, because that was exactly the same, right? No. Kane and others wanted to wear a One Love armband but others told them they shouldn’t. And players, lest we forget, are players, not politicians. This issue exists simply because of one thing: handing the World Cup to Qatar. Wouldn’t it be better if someone like – let’s say David Beckham – stood up to FIFA and the religious oppressors of QATAR. After all, Becks is trousering a mere £150 million for his role in sports washing. He might make more of a difference speaking out than Harry Kane. But no. It’s all Kane’s fault.
The game came as a bit of a relief. It was clear from the outset that England were up for it and that Gareth Southgate had come armed with an attacking strategy. It helped that the strategy was being carried out for him by the brilliant Jade Bellingham, Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka, as well as the rest of a dominant England team. I was, for the first time, interested in the World Cup, even if there is no justification for holding it in Qatar and never will be.
The BBC coverage was exemplary until the game started. The peerless Gary Lineker and his A list panel of Alan Shearer, Rio Ferdinand and Micah Richards excelled, but then blander than bland Guy Mowbray came on with the dismal, cliché-ridden Jermaine Jenas and almost spoiled everything. Clearly someone, somewhere at the BBC sees something in Jenas. I am afraid I haven’t worked out what that something is. ITV ran with a presenter I didn’t recognise, along with Gary Neville, Ian Wright and token Dutchman Nigel de Jong. Unlike the BBC, things got better when Jon Champion was revealed to be the commentator, alongside the best in the business Ally McCoist.
Today belonged to England, though. Southgate for getting all the big calls right and Bellingham who is going to be an all-time great player. I was hoping for a scratchy, scrappy 2-0 win and reserve our better form for the latter stages, but I’ll take this. We were bloody good at a World Cup, words you don’t read very often.
