Euro 2024: a selection headache for England and buildup to the last 16 ties – live news | Euro 2024

Did my annual transfer story today.

“I’d like to follow up on my own toxic, but undeniably prescient, contribution to the debate (yesterday’s live blog, 15:15 BST), vis a vis Southgate’s continually conservative clothing choice (the M&S cream zip polo shirt) and the necessity to release the handbrake in this regard,” writes Ben. “For goodness sake! The people are crying out for flair. A leather jacket? A Hawaiian shirt?? We’ve all got an opinion and I think flares could literally be the answer! But I suppose, inevitably, the key question we are all asking ourselves is, can Southgate’s star pieces, the zip polo shirt and the waistcoat, co-exist in the same ensemble? The zip polo shirt had an outstanding season but does it now look tired? Of course, both pieces want to assume the same position, and naturally the waistcoat would be drifting in from left field. Well, the combination would certainly be untested and no doubt uncomfortable, but could it bring a hitherto absent style to the campaign?”

It might distract people from what’s happening on the pitch.

It all looks very peaceful in the England camp. Some of the lads have been playing cricket, while Trent Alexander-Arnold is enjoying a bit of a stretch in the gym.

Kári Tulinius emails: “Rinat Dasayev to Manchester United in 1988 is one of the great what-ifs of football. At his peak ‘The Cat’ was the most graceful and dominant goalkeeper in the world. I can’t but think the ‘Fergie Era’ would’ve got going a few years early. It’s also a personal what-if moment. As a seven year old, I was obsessed with Dasayev, and if he’d rocked up at Old Trafford, I’d probably have become a Manchester United fan and enjoyed a blissful quarter-century of success. Ah well, it’s the struggles that define us. Speaking of, here’s a video of Dasayev reflecting wistfully on underachieving at the World Cup with the great Soviet side of 1982:”

Phil Foden has returned to Germany and trained with the rest of the England squad following the birth of his third child this week.

Ben Stokes has told under-fire England boss Gareth Southgate and his players to take the criticism they have received for their early performances at the Euro 2024 finals “on the chin and move on”.

England’s Test cricket captain, who was called in by Southgate to address the squad during their pre-tournament training camp at Middlesbrough’s Rockliffe Park headquarters, knows all about the pressure of performing under intense scrutiny.
The 33-year-old famously played a starring role as Eoin Morgan’s side lifted the 50-over World Cup with a dramatic victory over New Zealand in 2019 and, later the same summer, kept the Ashes alive with a stunning unbeaten 135 in a third Test win at Headingley, delivering when his country needed it most.

Asked how he coped with the pressure placed on him, as the nation’s footballers must now do, he said: “Just take it on the chin and move on.”

Asked what he had said during his time with the squad and what his advice would be now, Stokes said: “I really enjoyed going up and meeting the team. It was nice to get that invite from Gareth. I’ll keep what we spoke about there to myself but, look, they’ve got through to the knockout stages.

“Unfortunately it’s just the way that, I guess, the English mentality is, their team gets through to the knockout stages and they’re getting a load of grief. It’s interesting – I know what it’s like – but I guess that comes from expectation and everyone wanting their team to do well. But let’s just believe, eh?”

Thanks Rob. What will the dying embers of the working week provide us with? Who knows?

Hang on, before I go, here’s more on Scotlandwozrobbedgate.

Now I’ve polluted his blog with Manchester United glory, it’s ime for me to hand over to Will Unwin for the rest of the day. Thanks for your company, enjoy the football over the weekend.

“Regarding France v Portugal, I had almost forgotten the era of the Golden Goal,” says Joe Pearson. “Did we love it or hate it? All depends on whether your team scored it or not.”

The best golden goals were the ones scored in normal time. Oh, go on then.

“Funny how some question the best third-place teams going to the next round,” syas Lousise. “But when you look at, for example. Denmark, only scoring two goals, or Italy, struggling and compare that to a difficult Group D where the Netherlands scored five goals (yup, I am counting Xavi Simons’ goal). Is it really so bad the best third-place teams are joining in?”

Hasn’t the main complaint been the amount of time it takes to eliminate eight teams, rather than the concept per se? Like all formats, it has strengths and weaknesses. For example, I love the chaos that is caused when a potential winner finishes third in their group and gives the draw a shake.

That happened at Italia 90, when Argentina and the Netherlands came third, and led to one of the more dramatic days in football history: 24 June 1990. Highlights are below. Just listen to Barry Davies hold the name for Caniggia’s goal. The master.

In other news, the transfer window is creaking open. Have United signed Rinat Dasayev yet? It was on Teletext yesterday.

“I suppose it’s better to be gone but not forgotten, like Scotland, rather than forgotten but not gone, like one or two teams still left in the finals,” says Simon McMahon. “Thats what I’m telling myself anyway. Regarding the penalty, I thought it should have been given at the time but, on reflection, can see why it wasn’t. Maybe if Armstrong had actually tried to get a shot away rather than just protecting the ball it may have been given. But that’s all in the past, I’m supporting Georgia now. And England. I mean, who doesn’t love an underdog?”

I think it’s a pretty clear penalty. Armstrong is allowed to protect the ball and the contact comes while his leg is moving away from the defender’s. You can understand Rosetti defending his team though. He’s hardly going to say, ‘We’ve packed the lot of them off to Specsavers’.

On this day in 2012… Mario Balotelli wins a semi-final in style.

On this day in 2000… Portugal lose a semi-final, and their sh1t.

What I didn’t realise until a couple of years ago is that the shot from Sylvain Wiltord that led to Abel Xavier’s handball probably wasn’t on target. It’s hard to be sure but I reckon it would have hit the post. Amianeejit?

In the same game, Zinedine Zidane.

England’s opponents Slovakia are a good side, superbly coached and with a terrific left-winger in Lukas Haraslin. Here’s Jacob Steinberg on why England fans shouldn’t take them from granted. (TW: contains reference to Iceland.)

Spain v Georgia

Here’s more on Georgia from Daniel Boffey.

From the fans’ chants in Georgia’s opening game against Turkey of “Putin khuylo!” (Putin is a dickhead) to the questioning of Sagnol’s decision to drop a player who had vocally backed those protesting against Georgia’s alleged slide from democratic norms, there are signs of the battle being waged to claim the football team’s glory for one side or the other in the country’s political debate.

If books still exist in the year 2044, somebody will write a cracker to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Georgia at Euro 2024. A key character in the story will be their French coach Willy Sagnol, a man whose sufferance of fools makes Roy Keane seem easygoing by comparison. I promise you, there’s gold in this piece from Philippe Auclair.

It was known long before the press conference Willy Sagnol gave after Georgia’s defeat by Turkey that the French manager did not suffer fools gladly. What was not so well known was his remarkable command of colloquial English. “Twats,” he said of those who had criticised his team selection back home (more about which later). Then he said it again, with impeccable timing, before apologising – after a fashion – for the “tone” of his answer. The smile which accompanied the apology left no doubt.

Thanks Daniel, hello everyone. Let’s start with Scotland, who are gone but not forgotten. The Uefa referees’ chief Roberto Rosetti has been explaining the decision not to award them a penalty against Hungary.

This was a very, very tough match with a couple of controversial incidents. There was one in the 68th minute where there was a possible penalty, because John McGinn was pulling the opponent’s shirt.

Then there was the incident at minute 79. The attacker Armstrong was in front of the Hungarian (Orban). If you watch it from the camera behind, there was movement of the attacker towards the Hungarian.

The VARs are checking everything, the VAR checked this situation. They decided that this was just a physical contact trying to challenge the defender.

I can see both sides!

Does Southgate deserve some sympathy? Perhaps so, according to Peter Ormerod, who raise important points to consider.

Does that mean that Soughgate isn’t failing to get the most out of his team? No. Does it mean that he is powerless to change things or that he doesn’t have enough talented players rotting on the bench? Also no. But he can take solace in the fact that he has managed to get a tune out of this group and could certainly do so again.

Here’s Peter:

Yes, the failure to get the best out of the individual players is frustrating. But no one seems to be considering the fitness of the players. Bellingham looks nowhere near fit enough to play as an ‘8’. Saka seems to be struggling too, along with Kane. It’s also worth remembering that Southgate has got all of these players playing well before, in the last World Cup and in the Euros qualifiers. This was a tough tournament to prepare for, given injuries, drop-offs in form and the desire to incorporate new players. It’s not a massive surprise it’s taking a while to come together.

What have you made of Italy? The defending champions have hardly set the place alight but they’re through to the next round after emerging from the ‘Group of Death’.

Next they’ll play Switzerland who have been one of the few teams to actually look like a team, working together and attacking with some sort of cohesion.

Nicky Bandini writes on Italy’s manager, Luciano Spalletti, and wonders if he can find the same magic touch that took Napoli to the Scudetto title 20 months ago.

Oi, Gazza, are you reading this? A Jo has figured it out, fella:

Flippin Eck, just put Bellingham in 8, Foden in 10, and Gordon on the wing. It’s so simple!

I would also play Trent AA at right back and have him roam into midfield just as he does for Liverpool, allowing Bellingham to make those late runs into the box.

I must say, as a non-England fan (doesn’t mean I don’t like England, just not fussed if they win or lose) it is remarkable seeing such a talented group struggle to be more than the sum of its parts. Though I imagine if you are an England fan, it’s the most frustrating thing ever in your life, ever.

Thanks to our readers, I’m changing my tune concerning the competition’s format.

As Hugh Molloy points out, more is more.

Fair dos Hugh. You make an excellent point:

To my surprise, I enjoyed the 24 to 16 format. It meant no dead rubber matches, and, why not only jettison 8 teams after 3 matches. More football for everyone, right? Just ask the Georgians what they would feel about it!

Philippe Auclair has been the in-form Frenchman across the Euros and this is another banger.

Well, I say banger, but that trivialises what is an important and sobering piece on a subject that extends beyond the pitch and impacts us all.

Geoff Wignall has picked up an earlier comment of mine wondering if the 24 team format works.

I actually like 24 teams, and I agree that 32 bloat things. But it does feel odd to have so many progressing through to the next round. We’ve jettisoned a mere 33% of the sides that started the competition.

Thankfully Geoff has a solution:

I’ve no problem with having 24 teams, which opens space for surprise successes. 32 would be too many.

What I’d like to see though is the 24 then reduced to 8 for the knockout rounds – simple enough to have groups of 4, with the 6 group winners and 2 best runners up progressing.

Hardly innovative, but eminently workable.

Doug Purvis – with a mightily impressive beard in his email thumbnail – has cleared his lungs, clicked his fingers and unfurled a lengthy mail concerning England’s woes. He’s suggested a 3-4-3 as a remedy. What do you make of this?

First of all there is far too much noise. There’s a growing sense of entitlement emanating from England fans. We also see it with fans of clubs and in other spheres of society. That is, now that we’ve all been conditioned to see ourselves as consumers we’ve also come to feel we have a right to shout and demand and throw things if we feel the product we’re being sold is sub-standard. “I’ve paid good money to watch this rubbish!” This goes hand in hand with confusion surrounding a loss of community cohesion and a meaningful sense of identity that the neoliberal right, having created this cultural vacuum in the first place, is happy to exploit.

Having said that, beneath the noise, the criticisms of Southgate’s culture of caution is certainly justified, to some extent, and ignoring all the noise runs the risk of ignoring some reasoned analysis and some stark truths. I believe there’s a very straightforward way to restore balance to this team.

Firstly, there are there are other formations than 4-2-3-1, and that shape, with it’s dual pivot, is clearly not the one for this England team, especially when trying to break down ‘inferior’ opposition sitting in a low block. Secondly, if we don’t have a specialist left back, then why not employ a different formation that doesn’t require a left back? Thirdly, if we clearly need width in order to stretch massed defences, then play a left footed player on the left, rather than wasting Foden’s talents there. And, fourthly, don’t expect Alexander-Arnold, one of the best passers of a ball in world football, to magically morph into a player who can play as a defensive midfielder when he’s never done it, and it clearly doesn’t suit his skill-set.

Finally, find a way to get the best player in the Premier League last season – that’s Cole Palmer, who posted better numbers than Foden or anyone else, in spite of playing for a far inferior team, and must have been man of the match in about two-thirds of games he played – into the starting line-up.

With all that in mind, let’s just remember that Bukayo Saka is predominantly left-footed even though he plays as an inverted left-winger for Arsenal, so it should be no kind of stretch to play him on the left in order to free up space for Palmer and Alexander-Arnold on the right.

So how about 3-4-3 as a much better, more innovative, more coherent shape for this team? Like this: Pickford; Walker, Stones, Gomez; Alexander-Arnold, Rice, Bellingham/Mainoo, Saka/Gordon; Palmer, Kane/Watkins, Foden. (I’ve been advocating this since early-May, by the way.)

This formation gives us a proper left side, allowing Foden to play further inside in the spaces where he thrives, and it also gets Palmer and Alexander-Arnold into the positions on the right where they can thrive (with Palmer creating space for Trent to get on the ball and pick his killer passes). It even allows scope for Walker to get forward, with his pace, and create overloads on the right.

To me, that all looks so much better balanced, with genuine width on both flanks and greater strength in the middle to boot. The unlucky one, of course, would be Guehi, who’s been great, but who’d be sacrificed in order to get Gomez in as a genuine left-sided centre back (he’s done it many times at club level).

The alternative names offered here in three key positions are in recognition of the fact that they all offer something different, and that Bellingham, Kane and Saka all look like a break might do them some good, even though they’re all first choices. Eze, Bowen and others also have claims, but all might be better from the bench at this point.

“Nick Ames is absolutely correct”, says Kári Tulinius.

“The international game is now preferable to the club side of the sport. Don’t get me wrong, I still watch an inordinate amount of club football, but the romance has been ebbing away. The other day, prompted by discussion of the great Dinamo Tbilisi team, I looked at the clubs who won the Cup Winners Cup in the decade after them, and with the exception of Barcelona, Ajax and Juventus, each and every winner would today be considered a fairytale winner of the Europa League: Aberdeen, Everton, Dynamo Kyiv, Mechelen, and Sampdoria. During the same period the European Cup saw winners like Steuea Bucharest, PSV Eindhoven, Hamburg, and Aston Villa.

“It’s bad enough that the riches of the sport have been hoovered up by a handful of clubs, but now only the fans of a limited set of clubs from just a few nations can allow themselves to dream of glory. For the next few days, even though more likely than not a captain from one of the traditional powers will lift the cup at the end of the tournament, people from Georgia to Romania to Slovakia to Austria, and twelve other nations, can hope that their team will bring the trophy home.”

There’s a podcast war raging in the background with two mighty empires locked is a bitter contest for your ears.

But this has spilled over into the more traditional battle ground on the telly.

In one corner you have the BBC’s team, led by Gary Linekar and his Rest is Football crew.

Fighting them for supremacy is ITV with a clutch of big guns that regularly feature on the Overlap with Gary Neville, Roy Keane and Ian Wright forming a formidable triumvirate.

All of the above is grandiose and shouldn’t be taken seriously. But you should take this cracking piece by John Brewin seriously.

In it he unpacks a fascinating subplot that has developed on the fringe of the on-field action:

“Playing with John is a dream”

So says Marc Guéhi who has grabbed his opportunity and formed a formidable partnership at the heart of England’s defence with John Stones.

Sure, he’ll face stiffer tests as England progress through the tournament, but so far so good for a young man who many fans wouldn’t have had in their starting XI before the opening round.

David Hytner reports:

Have you ever seen someone strike the ball like this?

I missed this delicious connection. It’s now playing on repeat on another tab.

Thanks for holding the fort John.

I’m not sure about all of you, but I find it a bit odd that we’ve eliminated eight teams and still have 16 left in the competition. Would a 16 team format from the start be best? Or should we expand to 32?

Either way, and in case you’ve already forgotten about them, here’s the brief on the eight sides that stumbled at the first hurdle:

No Scotland, no party?

No Scotland, now party like the Scots, is Philipp Lahm’s suggestion. Just don’t play like them.

Ref watch. Michael Oliver given one of the bigger last-16 games. Anthony Taylor did not make himself popular with his dallying over that France v Netherlands offside decision.

So then, Slovakia. Paul MacInnes has been running the rule over them.

Tactical approach

The base formation is 4-3-3, with full-backs David Hancko and Peter Pekarik getting up the pitch in possession and outside the wide forwards Schranz and Lukas Haraslin. Slovakia are happy to play direct, with Schranz and Haraslin the main targets and the long-range distribution of defender Milan Skriniar is a distinct weapon. Off the ball the key is the coverage provided by the midfield of Duda, Stanislav Lobotka, and Juraj Kucka. This trio cut out the connection to Kevin De Bruyne against Belgium and denied the surges of Romania’s midfield trio on matchday three. Hancko and Pekarik have also proved effective in denying crosses into the box.

A wider football story from the Copa América.

PA Media report:

The United States Soccer Federation has criticised the racist comments directed at its men’s team after a shock 2-1 loss to Panama in the Copa América.

USA lost in Atlanta after Timothy Weah was sent off in the 18th minute before goals by Cesar Blackman and Jose Fajarado for Panama cancelled out Folarin Balogun’s opener for the host nation.

It has left USA in second place in Group C ahead of their final group fixture with Uruguay on Monday, but their players were targeted with racism following the narrow defeat.

“U.S. Soccer is aware of and deeply disturbed by the racist comments made online and directed at several of our men’s national team players following tonight’s match,” a statement read.

“There is absolutely no place in the game for such hateful and discriminatory behaviour. These actions are not only unacceptable but also contrary to the values of respect and inclusivity that we uphold as an organisation. U.S. Soccer stands firmly against racism in all forms and will continue to support our players.”

John Brewin

What were you doing at 16?

I hate these questions. They always make me feel terrible about myself and my lack of sporting talent. But you know what, sometimes they help put into context how stupidly good some of these elite players are.

Take Lamine Yamal, the teenager who can’t legally vote but is one of the stars of the Euros.

Sid Lowe sat down with Ferran Torres who says that the Barca prodigy’s abilities should be “illegal”.

If it makes the rest of us feel better about ourselves, then maybe there should be laws on being so good at such a young age.

England fans: Have you watched on as other teams light up the tournament, spreading the ball at pace and attacking with enthusiasm and vigour? Have you cast an envious eye towards a rival and though, ‘Why can’t Gareth do more with the highest valued team on the planet?’

You’re not alone.

Barney Ronay has taken a gander at Austria and likes what he sees. More to the point, he’s comparing Ralf Rangnick’s renegades with Southgate’s sorry sacks and found some striking differences between them.

Club versus Country: A battle as old as time.

A battle, according to Nick Ames, with a clear winner.

And I’ve got to say, I fully agree with Nick when he argues that the Euros proves that the sordid, elitist club game has lost its soul (I’m paraphrasing here).

Another thing I love about international football is how even the best teams are restricted. England don’t have a left side – on attack or defence – but that’s just too bad. They can’t go out and buy a left footed player. They simply have to make do. I love that!

So, whatdya reckon? Agree with Nick on this?

England have never lost to Slovakia in six matches, with five wins and one draw.

But apart from a 4-0 win in a friendly in 2009, they’ve been tight affairs with scores of 2-1 and 1-0 in World Cups, and 0-0, 2-1 and 2-1 in the Euros.

Does this mean anything? Not really. England are ‘miserable’ and Slovakia are targeting an upset, according to this fascinating piece by Lukas Vrablik in Zilina:

But can Slovakia actually hurt England? Paul MacInnes breaks it down:

Here are 10 stats from the group stage and number two will shock you!

Seriously, the second stat in this list compiled by Niall McVeigh sums up England’s ineptitude so far. If they can get that right I bet their entire attack will start to function as it should.

Anthony Gordan injured in turbo bike accident

Phil Foden returns

So, England are on the so-called ‘easy side of the draw’, where their path to glory is paved with gold?

Right?

Guess again, says Jacob Steinberg, who douses cold water on that hot take by taking a look at England’s murky past.

Preamble

Daniel Gallan