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Key events
“I don’t know anything about club football,” emails Mariana “… But I do enjoy watching the international competitions because of all the reasons you and your colleagues have written about in the last few days … I can’t listen to the German commentators at all, which is why I have been LOVING The Guardian’s MBM on the games for quite some years now, so thank you!
“I do have to nag about something: I – like many non-club-level-watchers – enjoy watching the underdogs play (loved Cup Verde against Spain!), mainly because of the fun, and spirit, and sometimes even humility they bring. Which is why it’s really difficult for me to watch the superstars go down at every touch, as the English players did yesterday. (I’m looking at you, Bellingham.)
“I just don’t enjoy it. What’s that all about? It completely disrupts the flow of the game, and is embarrassing to watch … I would even argue that the Croatian players seem to be able to get off their bottoms without making a fuss every time. And I’m not just saying that because they have been my team since 2006, I swear (watching Japan v Croatia at 16, in my home country, simply was a blast).
“Anyway, congratulations on your team’s success yesterday. Even though Kane had fumbled the penalty, and the incomparable pink kraken Livakovic should have been player of the match, and Bellingham went down every chance he got.”
Thanks for the email, Mariana. All sounds reasonable.
What sort of thing is happening later?
There are three matches – and all the following times are UK:
Czechia v South Africa (17.00)
Switzerland v Bosnia & Herzegovina (20.00)
Canada v Qatar (23.00)
And in yet more Tuchel news …
England head coach Thomas Tuchel has complained he could not see his players singing the national anthem because of a scrum of photographers blocking his view – and has urged Fifa to intervene.
Tuchel led England to a 4-2 win over Croatia in their opening World Cup game at the AT+T Stadium in Arlington on Wednesday, with Harry Kane scoring twice and Jude Bellingham and Marcus Rashford scoring the third and fourth goals respectively.
He was unhappy that for his first tournament finals match in charge of England, he could not see his players during the rendition of God Save The King.
“I have to tell you something, I am begging FIFA to change the position of the photographers in the national anthem because I could not see my team in the national anthem,” he said.
“I was waiting for this moment. It was a very, very special moment today and I was standing in front of a wall of 50 photographers, half a metre away, and I could not see one single player. It ruined a little bit my experience.
“It is very emotional. When I was young and when I started coaching, this was too big to dream of this kind of occasion.”
“They swarmed all over Croatia and gave a glimpse not so much of patterns of play, but of a willingness to actually do this, of the muscle, speed and ruthlessness that are undeniably there in this team.”
Barney Ronay is here to explain what happened in Dallas. It’s a piece about Jude Bellingham – but also about Thomas Tuchel.
“Tuchel was present here in all black, with that familiar look of some founding American settler, a goggle-eyed Dutch farmer in a straw hat out there tilling the lands. He must take credit if not for the start, then for the way England altered the energy here.”
Shall we dip into the BTL comments … Well, why not? The first and third of these are about England: apologies in advance.
The defence is getting a lot of stick for those two goals, but in truth it was the failure of the midfield to get control that led to them. There were too many occasions when there were wide open spaces, loose passes, possession lost in dangerous areas. But the worst aspect was the passivity, the lack of serious pressing. England haven’t got great central defenders so midfield protection is vital.
One of the positive things about the first round of matches has been the refereeing, they’ve clearly decided to officiate with a light touch and it’s so much better for the game when they don’t blow up for every little bit of contact. Players have already realised they’re not getting free kicks by exaggerating every touch and they’re getting short shrift if they’re rolling about on the floor for no reason. Add in the fact that VAR isn’t trying to re-referee every game and I think they’ve got it pretty much spot on so far with their approach. Let’s hope it continues.
For a first game I thought England were fine. The fact we had some gears we could go through and some real power to bring off the bench bodes well. And it’s nice to see a bit of oomph after the years of Southgate tedium. Not sure Stones as first choice centrehalf is sustainable though – he’s not played all season and for all his silkiness I think will just be phased out for the more mobile Guehi.
Good too to see England’s two best players (Kane and Bellingham) actually looking fit and sharp. They were both shadows of themselves in the last tournament and if we’re going to do anything here we’ll need both with energy at the sharp end of the knock-outs.
There was more than a touch of “jibbing in” for England’s opener, if eyewitness reports of lax security and ticket checks are to be believed. And why shouldn’t they be?
Fifa has played down reports that ticketless England supporters were able to gain entry for the World Cup opener against Croatia after evading security checks at the Dallas Stadium.
An unspecified number of fans without tickets are said to have made their way into the ground despite a huge security operation being put in place at the home of the Dallas Cowboys in Arlington. Officials said that snipers were in place inside the stadium, with the Arlington police department deploying “highly trained personnel and specialised resources” at the venue.
But despite those measures and some fans having paid thousands of pounds for tickets, there were widespread reports of supporters without tickets gaining access.
The England midfielder Jude Bellingham believes playing with a “chip on my shoulder” will bring the best out of him at the World Cup.
Bellingham scored the vital third goal as Thomas Tuchel’s side opened their campaign with a 4-2 win over Croatia in the Group L clash in Dallas.
There were uncertainty surrounding Bellingham’s inclusion in Tuchel’s squad for the tournament in North America after missing the September and October camps through injury.
That followed last summer’s international window which ended in Tuchel saying his mother found Bellingham’s behaviour “repulsive”, while his ability (or perceived lack thereof) to buy into Tuchel’s “brotherhood” has also come under scrutiny.
Bellingham was chosen ahead of his friend Morgan Rogers in the No 10 position, before switching to a deeper role, and made an early mark in the tournament.
“For me personally, it was nice to put some of the noise aside and just show my country and my teammates how committed I am to help us try to win football matches,” he told BBC Sport.
“It was a great team performance. Second half, we got things right, first half we got the intensity right, but not quite with the ball and second half we put it all together nicely.
“To contribute, to help my team and help my country is one of the biggest honours and regardless of the noise outside, that honour doesn’t change for me at all.
“It has been a tough season for me but I am feeling fresh and sharp and stronger.
“I have got a little bit of a chip on my shoulder. That helps me a lot to find that focus early in the game and to find that intensity.
“I know that it’s part of being a footballer and I don’t hold a grudge against anyone who says bad things about me because sometimes I do deserve it.
“Today, it was nice to try to show people and remind people what I’m about.” PA Media
A fresh England line hot off the wires coming right up …
If by some bizarre chance you missed it, here’s a gallery of some of the best images from England 4-2 Croatia:
And here is reaction from Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham and Tommy Tuchel:
Jonathan Liew
I fell asleep at some point during the Netherlands v Japan game. It had been a hot and drowsy day by the shores of Lake Annecy, a square and heavy heat, where the sun and the driving and the food and the boxed wine gently squeeze all the life from your body, like air being pressed out of a juice carton.
I remember Virgil van Dijk angling a header into the far corner, and when I came to it was 2-1, and everyone was heading to bed, drunk on tiredness, drunk on life, drunk on drink.
Not all of my friends care for football in any case, and so the World Cup had become a kind of mood music, something to fill the silences in conversation. Through the long and meandering chat about home renovations and Andy Burnham, an indistinct French voice occasionally cut through from a different universe. Maeda. Gravenberch. The Low Countries tempted to attain the final for the first time since 2010. My French isn’t great. Someone prised open a bottle of Heineken. Bodies draped themselves over the couch, fingers scrolled through phones, the immaculate decadence of boredom.
Jacob Steinberg
When Thomas Tuchel won the Champions League with Chelsea in 2021 the success was built on unflinching defensive rigour and midfield discipline. Five years on, though, Tuchel’s England displayed neither of those qualities during a dreadful first half in Dallas. They kept losing the ball in dangerous areas, struggled to maintain their shape without the ball and were rocking when Croatia stung them with a second equaliser just before half-time.
The vibe could hardly have been less convincing. Anthony Barry, Tuchel’s No 2, let rip in an interview with ITV, accusing England of doing all the wrong things, of playing with “a nervous energy”, of making everything “confused and complicated” against opponents well versed in making their craft and experience in midfield count.
Of course, England got away with it in the end, the response in the second half astonishing, Barry’s words no doubt delivered in even stronger terms by Tuchel in the dressing room. Yet while they won their opening game in Group L thanks to a moment of breathtaking power from Jude Bellingham and a late breakaway goal from Marcus Rashford, the overall display was far from good enough.
If you think everything in England’s garden is rosy after banging in four goals against Croatia, Jacob Steinberg has some news for you …
There really is quite a lot of football occurring.
Ghana celebrated a 1-0 win against Panama in Toronto, joining England atop Group L:
And in Group K, Jonathan Wilson witnessed Colombia beating Uzbekistan 3-1, down in Mexico City:
“Let’s have it off,” one excited England fan told Sky Sports News outside the stadium after England’s victory.
Doesn’t he mean “Let’s have it”?
I wish I could say I will be speaking from a position of authority on England’s win against Croatia, but I was on a plane, coming home from Spain.
Therefore, your emails, in which you tell me what happened, and offer your first-class analysis, are going to be particularly important this morning. Get involved.
Mexican military forces intercepted and brought down a drone that flew near the South Korea team’s training camp ahead of its World Cup match against Mexico, a federal official told the Associated Press.
Military forces used specialised equipment to detect an “unregistered drone” near the South Korean camp, prompting them to “neutralise” it, the Mexican federal agent said.
Preamble
England are quite good, it would seem, after their opening Group L 4-2 win against Croatia:
While the rest of the world waits for England to be bad – or at least suffer a heartbreaking penalty shootout defeat against Argentina, or someone – their fans are certainly going to enjoy the next few weeks …
Let’s all talk about the World Cup!
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