{"id":3198,"date":"2026-07-13T13:56:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T12:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/?p=3198"},"modified":"2026-07-13T13:56:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T12:56:31","slug":"a-week-in-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/?p=3198","title":{"rendered":"A week in football"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Source: The Weather Channel<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Lobby journalists often fall back on “a week is a long time in politics” whenever there is more than one thing going on. It’s like what the rest of us mean when we say we’re quite busy at work. It is unclear how the phrase was originally coined, but it is usually attributed to Harold Wilson during one of his sterling crises in 1964. He could not remember ever having said it himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am here this week to say it’s all tosh anyway, because the place where a week can be a really long time sometimes is football.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World Cup week started at 2am on Monday morning. It should have been 1am, but the lightning storms and North American monsoon had led to a delay in kick off time to 7pm local time and the local weather forecast rather unfortunately designated Mexico City as having “poor weather for running right now”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I anticipated that it was going to be an operatic night, win or lose, so at 1am I decided to take a walk through Sutton Coldfield to take the temperature of my neighbourhood. I was Charles Dickens’ uncommercial traveller<\/a> in my mind, who documented several nights of night walks, starting around 12.30am. He described:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The restlessness of a great city, and the way in which it tumbles and tosses before it can get to sleep, formed one of the first entertainments offered to the contemplation of us houseless people. It lasted about two hours. We lost a great deal of companionship when the late public-houses turned their lamps out, and when the potmen thrust the last brawling drunkards into the street; but stray vehicles and stray people were left us, after that.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By contrast Sutton was very quiet. The first pub I came to, the Horse and Jockey, was closed and dark. Lights behind curtains and blinds were dotted around the streets, but everyone seemed to be keeping their own company. The Distillery had gone full event night, with bouncers posted on the door, but I walked past the Wetherspoons just as the staff were locking the front door there. Otherwise the only communal places still lit up and active were the pool bar and the Sher Punjabi Bar and Grill, whose Facebook page encouraged you to “feast like a lion”. Compared to the London of the 1860s, where pubs open until 2.30am seemed commonplace, Sutton Coldfield was, on the whole, tucked up in bed with the sound turned down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I returned home to take my seat for the opera. It started with the national anthems. I have never seen a team and home crowd singing a national anthem more terrifyingly. “Mexicans, at the Cry of War” it translates as, written in 1853 to refer to various Mexican victories in battle in defence of their homeland. This was soon after the Mexican-American War between 1846 and 1848, following the United States’ annexation of Texas from Mexico, a war which resulted in Mexico being forced to sell its northern territories of New Mexico and most of California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The venue was the Azteca stadium, the largest stadium in Latin America, built in 1966 when the 60 years of hurt began. It is 7,352 feet above sea level. ITV had this hilarious graphic:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The 20% reduction in oxygen partial pressure at that attitude means you have to work harder to breathe. This is something that can be adapted to in time. The Mexican team had played every game except one (Guadalajara at 5000 feet) in Mexico City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

England had last played in the Azteca in a World Cup 40 years earlier when Maradona scored with his hand (he called it “the hand of God”) for one of his two goals (the other was one of the most brilliant individual goals ever seen) to defeat England in the quarter finals. They had never beaten Mexico there. Indeed Mexico had only ever lost there twice before, in 2013 and 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I won’t document the actual match in much detail, as there are many match reports around and you don’t come here for the sports reporting. But in summary: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quietened the crowd for 20 mins by breaking up any flow to the game – first hydration break – 2 goals in quick succession from Bellingham followed equally quickly by one back from Quinones – half time, when the Azteca produced its own light show including flashing all the lights off in a very unsettling way – Quansah sent off and down to 10 men for most of 2nd half – Gordon won a penalty which Kane scored then Kane gave away a penalty which Jimenez scored – then Tuchel at the hydration break assessed the state of his 10 men at 7000 feet and changed the entire team to one which could man barricades and they threw themselves bodily in front of any attempt at a shot for over half an hour – 3-2 phew!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jordan Henderson managed to get yellow carded and injured without even coming on the pitch. It was that kind of night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Source: ET Heisenberg on X<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The mythologising of the match began almost immediately. Sky Sports described it as “one of their greatest knockout results”. The BBC report said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a night of sheer sporting theatre, with the game delayed by an hour because of severe storms, Thomas Tuchel’s side even survived Jarell Quansah’s red card early in the second half to record one of their finest wins in recent years.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Telegraph<\/a> inevitably had the headline:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The week continued. Spain knocked out Portugal and Ronaldo in stoppage time, which seemed appropriate after Portugal’s win over Croatia being so controversial the crowd rained plastic water bottles down on them. Even more appropriate was Belgium’s 4-1 win over the United States, who fielded Folarin Balogun after his red card suspension was itself suspended following a conversation between US President Donald Trump and FIFA President Gianni Infantino, with the Belgian forward Romelu Lukaku doing a Trump Dad dance at the end and the team posting this on X:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Argentina struggled past Egypt controversially too, with Egypt having a goal disallowed and their FA calling for an investigation of the entire team of referees and VAR team over “blatant errors and insisting on not reviewing some of the footage that we believe are in favour of the Egyptian national team”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was not the first country to lose its shit over an early exit. The South Korean President has instructed their Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to conduct a thorough investigation into the team’s early exit, citing the amount of public money invested in the team’s World Cup campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The week continued. Neither Switzerland nor Colombia were able to shoot straight, but Switzerland went through on penalties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, as part of this hard-hitting report, a good friend of mine suggested I look into the incidence of people having their boots trodden on, which we agreed to call Bootgate. To be honest, unless it was one of the many things happening to Jordan Henderson I had not really been paying attention, and after an extensive investigation I can confirm that I can find no evidence for my friend’s claim. However one reason, if it were true, might be that everyone’s boots seem to be DayGlo pink this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On to the quarter finals. France looked dazzling beating Morocco, with Mbappe now almost unplayable at times. Spain, as clever as they were in the European Championships but much more incisive now with the 19 year old Yamal, eased past a severely injury-depleted Belgium, who even lost their legendary goalkeeper Courtois before the end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And England? Well huge amounts of drama but not a great game of football. The Norwegian fans’ Oops-Upside-Your-Head routine roused their team fitfully. Both teams had goals ruled out and England a penalty too. In the end Bellingham wanted to win more than anyone else on the pitch and carved out two goals from sheer bloody-minded willpower. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing I didn’t pick up until the following morning’s coverage was the controversy over England’s first goal. The Norwegians claimed their goalkeeper’s clearance hit the camera cables suspended over the pitch and changed direction before it landed, and there should therefore have been a drop ball. This is when I discovered that FIFA had installed snickometer technology, of the type that tells whether batsman have hit the ball before it hit their pads and therefore whether they are lbw or not, in every match ball. And it didn’t snick! If we win, I predict this will be talked about as long as England’s third goal in the 1966 final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, exactly one week from the start of England’s game in the Azteca, Argentina kicked off against Switzerland in the final quarter final. Argentina scored an early goal against Switzerland and then did very little after that, with Switzerland looking like the most likely team to win until Embolo managed to get a second yellow card for falling over his own feet and was sent off, at which point Argentina stirred themselves to two extra time goals to win it. Meanwhile Tuchel was saying his team were lucky to get through and that he was unhappy with the performance. To which Bellingham, clearly feeling unappreciated, retorted that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Maybe he doesn’t know what it’s like to play in those conditions against Erling Haaland, Martin Odegaard, Antonio Nusa and Alexander Sorloth.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harry Kane stepped in like a good captain to both defend his manager and indulge in a bit of Good Cop-Bad Cop psychology:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“He’s trying to drag it out of us and we know ourselves we have another level we can reach.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that was a week in football. What did politics achieve in that time? Well Trump ended a war and then restarted it. Nigel Farage resigned as an MP and then immediately stood for a by-election in the same constituency, with only Count Binface for company. All of Labour’s MPs<\/a> have now ruled themselves out of challenging Andy Burnham for the PM role. Compared to the football it feels like Groundhog Day in politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next week in football may turn out to be just as long!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lobby journalists often fall back on “a week is a long time in politics” whenever there is more than one thing going on. It’s like what the rest of us mean when we say we’re quite busy at work. It is unclear how the phrase was originally coined, but it is usually attributed to Harold […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3198"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3212,"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3198\/revisions\/3212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weknow0.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}