And here is David Hytner’s match report from Wembley, which will serve as my parting gift. Bye!
It was a night when England wanted to impose themselves as an attacking force, after the frustration of Saturday’s 1-0 defeat here against Brazil, and they did. There was a goal for Ivan Toney on his full debut from the penalty spot and a virtuoso performance from another player making his first England start – the fearless 18-year-old Kobbie Mainoo.
On this evidence, and what Mainoo has shown since breaking into the Manchester United team in November, the midfielder has made a serious case to gatecrash Gareth Southgate’s squad for the European Championship. Jarrod Bowen advanced his claim, as well.
In addition to it all, there was the fighting spirit which saw England go until the very end. It had felt as though profligacy would be their enemy and blunders within a makeshift defence, Southgate’s team conceding two completely avoidable goals.
Much more here:
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Jamie Jackson witnessed Scotland’s latest reverse, this time by a single goal at home to Northern Ireland:
Something to tide you over while we wait for a report on this game:
Meanwhile in the Euro 2024 qualifying play-off between Wales and Poland, it’s still goalless and extra time is being played. Rob Smyth is all over it here:
Jude Bellingham has a chat. He says Mainoo played well but “it’s difficult - I’m speaking like the old head here but I know how hard it could be when there’s that clamour and I don’t want to add to that”, which seems very wise.
I liked the goal because I knew the rubbish we’d have got if we’d lost two games on the bounce. Really we should be winning with all the chances we made. I think it’s two games that will stand is in great stead going into the Euros. We trust everyone who comes into the squad, they’re all in the squad for good reasons. It’s hard for the gaffer, he planned a fully fit team and to give it a really good crack. I’m sure he’s glad with the players he got to see.
Final score: England 2-2 Belgium
90+5 mins: And that’s it! England grab a deserved draw at the death!
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GOAL! England 2-2 Belgium (Bellingham, 90+5 mins)
They’ve pulled a rabbit out of the hat! Pickford lumps the ball forward, it eventually drops to Maddison on the byline and he finds an excellent pass to pick out Bellingham, who sidefoots into the far corner!
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90+5 mins: England win a free kick in their own half and have to take it quickly. Batshuayi stands in front of the ball, and is booked.
90+4 mins: England have had no trouble finding opportunities to shoot, but there has almost always been a Belgian boot in the way when they’ve done so. Faes blocks Bellingham’s effort this time.
90+1 mins: What a chance for Belgium! Doku runs down the left, Openda distracts a couple of defenders and Lukebakio sprints into space on the right. Doku finds him, but Lukebakio shoots over the bar!
90+1 mins: Into the first of four minutes of stoppage time, which starts with Rice arguing with Onana, and Maddison getting booked for dissent.
89 mins: An excellent tackle on Doku – I’m not sure who was responsible – sends the ball to Foden, inside the area and in space, but Vertonghen turns up in time to block the shot.
87 mins: England are doing their very best to fashion a chance, but just can’t do it. Chilwell sprints with the ball towards the area, but Meunier gets across to take possession and the English left-back runs straight into him with painful results.
85 mins: An excellently entertaining jinking run from Doku helps Belgium carry the ball from 40 yards away from their own goal on the left to 40 yards away from their own goal on the right. It didn’t achieve a lot, but it was extremely stylish.
82 mins: A triple change from Belgium: Mangala, Debast and Lukaku come off, Openda, Faes and Batshuayi come on. Batshuayi has gone up a lot in my estimations since I saw him wearing a greatcoat as a cape.
— Michy Batshuayi (@mbatshuayi) March 18, 2024
80 mins: Had Bowen missed by more it might have set Bellingham up for a tap-in. Instead he goes straight off, along with Toney, while Ollie Watkins and Anthony Gordon come on.
79 mins: Ooooh! Bowen plays in Foden, running into the left of the penalty area, but his left-foot shot runs just wide of the far post.
77 mins: Several more substitutes are being readied by England, who need a bit of fresh energy and impetus.
74 mins: Mangala is played down the right, but Rice eventually get back to cut out his pass, and anyway he was miles offside. Maddison, meanwhile, comes on for Mainoo, who has been very good.
72 mins: James Maddison is getting ready to come on. “Surely the obvious counter to Belgium’s Tintin-inspired kit would be for England to turn up looking like Melchester Rovers,” suggests Kari Tulinius. “The shirt with the off-center stripe is especially fetching.” It’s yellow checked shorts or bust for me.
70 mins: A double substitution for Belgium, who take off Theate and their double goalscorer Tielemans and bring on Thomas Meunier and Aster Vranckx.
67 mins: Gomez tugs Doku back by the shorts, and gets booked.
65 mins: England’s best chance of the half falls to Mainoo at the end of another excellent attack, but he shoots into Sels. Foden thinks he should have had a penalty in the build-up, but the referee does not and neither does the VAR. “I’m actually quite familiar with the combo of chocolate brown and sky blue as they are the colors of my alma mater, Tufts University in Medford, MA,” writes Ky Rogers, as Lukaku sends a first-time 20-yarder well over the bar. “Check out their instagram for a variety of sports uniforms in those colors. ‘Steady and true, rush along brown and blue...’” Hmmm, I saw lots of blue and lots of brown but had to look pretty hard for both at the same time.
63 mins: Good football from England, working the ball from left to right across the area, but Gomez’s low cross is a bit behind Bowen and his improvised shot is saved.
60 mins: Dodi Lukebakio, formerly of Watford, replaces Leandro Trossard for Belgium.
59 mins: Gomez tracks Doku again, but that means Theate is in all sorts of space when the ball is past to him, and his low cross would have been excellent had anyone anticipated it but instead runs across goal and out the other side.
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57 mins: Doku is all twinkle feet inside the area, feinting and twisting, but Gomez sticks with him well and earns an almost comically exaggerated round of gloved applause from Pickford.
54 mins: Chance! Gomez’s cross picks out Bellingham, who is unmarked and seven yards out but heads wide.
53 mins: A lovely move from England, but they can’t create any space in the penalty area and in the end Foden’s shot is blocked.
52 mins: Chance for England! Foden carries the ball towards the Belgian area and then passes to Toney, whose shot towards the near post is easily saved.
51 mins: It’s been a quiet opening to the second half, and almost all of it has been spent with the ball in England’s half.
49 mins: England’s first attacking foray of the second half sees Mainoo pass forward to Toney, whose 20-yarder deflects wide.
47 mins: “England playing catch up with the continent again,” complains Paul Skinner. “When do we get a Rupert tribute kit?” Oh I am all in for yellow checked shorts.
46 mins: Peeeep! The second half is happening!
England players will again wear shirts without names on the back in the second half of their friendly against Belgium on Tuesday as part of a campaign to raise awareness of dementia. The “disappearance” of the names from the first half to the second is intended to highlight how people with dementia can lose precious memories.
More here:
And more information at the Alzheimers Society here.
After Kyle Walker against Brazil, John Stones’ injury completes a bad few days for Manchester City defenders in England shirts. “First Walker, now Stones,” writes the Guardian’s own Philip Cornwall, “Guardiola will be apoPeptic”
“Is nobody going to mention Belgium’s cavalier fashion sense in mixing donkey brown and sky blue?” asks Adrian Riley. “I’m struggling to think who else has ever played in brown shorts (other than Gary Lineker in ‘90 World Cup).”
Two points here. Firstly, it’s a Tintin tribute:
Secondly, I don’t have a photograph I’m allowed to print of the classic Coventry City shirt of the late 1970s and early 1980s, but you can read all about it here.
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Half time: England 1-2 Belgium
45+3 mins: We have had half of the time. So much to admire from England, but a couple of very poor errors in defence means they trail at the break.
45+3 mins: Now Bowen shoots from 25 yards or so, again without enough power to trouble Sels.
45+2 mins: Bowen traps Gomez’s cross – he could perhaps have let it run to Toney – and then passes to Bellingham, who does well to turn and shoot but not well enough to get much power on it.
45+1 mins: There’ll be three minutes of stoppage time, almost all of it making up for VAR interventions.
43 mins: Gomez is tackled by Onana and goes over, and catches Onana’s head with a boot in doing so. The Belgian physios are on.
42 mins: Sels catches the cross.
41 mins: Onana refuses to let Mainoo get past him after being nutmegged, and England have a free-kick on the right flank in a promising crossing position.
39 mins: England are playing pretty well. The quality of players they have at their disposal these days is ridiculous, but so is the comfort with which they play international football – this is where Gareth Southgate has excelled. But the depth of talent is not the same in defence as it is in attack, and individual errors do happen. Better to get them out of their systems now rather than in the summer.
England 1-2 Belgium (Tielemans, 36 mins)
That’s a beautifully-taken goal, but England are their own worst enemies again. The home side put together a lovely attack but it breaks down and Belgium break. Tielemans plays a long diagonal pass towards Lukaku, which Dunk makes an absolute hash of defending, and Lukaku then plays a delicious outside-of-the-boot cross back into the path of Tielemans, who heads in!
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33 mins: Close! Belgium try to play the ball out from the goal kick but Mainoo takes it off Mangala’s toes and it goes to Bellingham, unmarked and 10 yards from goal, who also skies his shot! Had it gone in there would have been a decision to make about whether Mainoo had fouled Mangala, but no need.
32 mins: Now Foden pops up in the middle and plays a blind pass to Bowen on the right. He gets into the area, cuts onto his left foot and then skies his shot.
29 mins: Foden has been quiet, his most notable contribution being the pass back to Pickford that led to Belgium’s goal. He plays a nice pass to Chilwell, bursting down the left, but the full-back’s run is well defended.
27 mins: England have a goal disallowed! The corner is played deep, beyond the far post, where Dunk heads it back into the mixer, and Bowen nods in. But the West Ham forward is very much offside when Dunk heads the ball – though VAR spends a curious amount of time working this out – and it remains 1-1.
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26 mins: Bowen passes to Bellingham, bursting into the area, and his pull-back from the byline is cleared by Zeno Dabast, two yards out, somehow clearing his bar when an own-goal seemed more likely.
25 mins: “Sorry to cavil Simon, but how does the need for a defensive rejig cause Pickford to pass the ball to an opponent?” asks Geoff Wignall. “They didn’t change their shirt colour when Stones departed.” Fair question. I meant that it will have contributed to the uncertainty with which England defended the Belgium attack that immediately preceded that moment.
21 mins: An excellent counter from England, Mainoo to Toney, back to Mainoo and across to Bellingham, working the ball from well inside their own half to the edge of Belgium’s penalty area. Bellingham then has a shot when perhaps he could have looked for a pass/cross, and it’s blocked by a defender.
20 mins: Save! Doku jinks and shimmies infield from the left and shoots low and hard towards the far post, but Pickford pushes it away from danger.
GOAL! England 1-1 Belgium (Toney, 17 mins)
There’s a chunky delay while the penalty award is checked by the VAR, and another while the referee has a word with the Belgian goalkeeper Matz Sels, at the end of which Toney executes an excellent penalty, sending Sels one way and stroking the ball the other.
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16 mins: Ivan Toney is back on his feet, and has the ball in his hands.
Penalty to England!
15 mins: Bellingham plays the ball through to Toney, who gets in front of Vertonghen. The veteran defender throws out a foot, Toney goes down, and the referee points to the spot!
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14 mins: England had just reorganised their defence, with Konsa moving from right-back to the centre and Gomez slotting in on the right, which will have had something to do with it.
GOAL! England 0-1 Belgium (Tielemans, 11 mins)
An absolute stinker of a goal for England to concede! They struggle to defend a Belgium attack but finally win the ball, and in the left-back position Foden plays it back to Pickford, outside the left side of his area. Under no pressure Pickford completely fluffs his clearance, hits it straight to a light blue shirt and it’s instantly played to Tielemans, who cleverly sends his shot into the corner of the net that Pickford has just sprinted past on his way to the other one.
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10 mins: Joe Gomez replaces Stones.
9 mins: It looks like that Stones error injured more than his pride – he’s drawn the physios’ attention to a muscle injury, and it looks like his night is over.
8 mins: In news from elsewhere news, Georgia have qualified for their first ever major tournament, and are quite happy. Cue a pitch invasion, and scenes. Greece, champions 20 years ago, are out.
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6 mins: Stones gives the ball away to Lukaku really clumsily, but the Belgian fluffs his pass to Tielemans.
3 mins: Bellingham gets the crowd cooing by holding off a defender on the right flank and backheeling a pass through to Bowen. The linesman then gets the crowd moaning by raising his flag.
2 mins: Then Belgium hare down the other end, but Trossard chips a diagonal cross out of play.
1 min: Bowen gets down the right and crosses, Toney gets in front of his marker and volleys. But the cross is behind him, and though he volleys goalwards his own hand is directly in the ball’s path between foot and net. Free kick.
1 min: They’re off! And England have a chance 20 seconds later!
They have now emerged, anthems have been sung, and members of the British armed forces are currently occupied clearing the field of massive flags and assorted detritus. Next, football.
The players are in the tunnel, and exchanging hand-clasps and chest-bumps.
Richard Hirst has decoded Declan Rice’s various statements and concluded that “getting the win would be the hundreds and thousands sprinkled on the icing”. and furthermore says I have “obviously haven’t been to enough children’s parties”. I’ve been to plenty of children’s parties, and would say that from what I have learned there if anything the win would be an eBay-sourced edible-ink rice paper image of the Octonauts.
Declan Rice says his captaincy style is to “put everyone else before me”, and thinks his midfield partnership with Kobbie Mainoo will be grand - “I think it’ll be the perfect balance.”
To reach 50 caps is a real honour and to have the armband on is the icing on the cake. Just hope we can get the win which would top off the night. I’m not putting too much pressure on myself, I’m going to go out there, be myself and help everyone where I can. We want to go out, be on the front foot, be fast, be sharp, and we need to win the game.
So to be clear, having the armband is the icing on the cake, but getting a win would top off the icing on the cake.
It’s been a terribly damp evening in north London thus far, and as Channel 4’s coverage starts all involved – including Marouane Fellaini to provide some Belgian expertise – are sheltering under big golf brollies. Of course, it’s a classic Wembley look.
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Whatever happens at Wembley, I’m pretty sure the goal of the day has already been scored*:
🤦♂️I'd be straight back down the tunnel if I were him; that's shocking 😂
— Footy Accumulators (@FootyAccums) March 26, 2024
🎥 @ViaplaySportsUK pic.twitter.com/JeSDAX34ZI
* For those who can’t see the video, it’s Marcis Oss of Latvia scoring an own goal from an improbable angle after 14 seconds of a game against Liechtenstein. Pretty special. The game is currently tied at 1-1 with three minutes to play.
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The teams!
Team news is in, and it looks like this. Kobbie Mainoo starts, alongside Jarrod Bowen, Lewis Dunk and Ivan Toney.
England: Pickford, Konsa, Dunk, Stones, Chilwell, Bellingham, Rice, Bowen, Foden, Mainoo, Toney. Subs: Ramsdale, Trafford, Gallagher, Watkins, Gordon, Gomez, Henderson, Branthwaite, Lewis, Rashford, Maddison, Palmer.
Belgium: Sels, Castagne, Debast, Vertonghen, Theate, Tielemans, Onana, Mangala, Doku, Lukaku, Trossard. Subs: Kaminski, Bodart, Faes, Openda, Lukebakio, Meunier, Deman, Bakayoko, Vermeeren, Vranckx, Batshuayi, De Winter.
Referee: Sebastian Gishamer (Austria).
Tonight's #ThreeLions! 👊 pic.twitter.com/Mxd6uHic5m
— England (@England) March 26, 2024
Tonight’s team. 🇧🇪 #SelectedByPwC #ENGBEL #WirSchaffenDas pic.twitter.com/u5wyoX4jAH
— Belgian Red Devils (@BelRedDevils) March 26, 2024
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Preamble
Belgium’s golden generation are becoming increasingly silver-haired, and perhaps it is now England’s turn to benefit from a crop of wonderful talents. But even with Kevin de Bruyne injured (Romelu Lukaku, who wasn’t fit enough to play in the goalless draw in Ireland at the weekend, takes the armband) they have enough quality to bother an under-strength home side without Harry Kane, Kyle Walker, Harry Maguire. “Can we win? We’re going to try,” said Jeremy Doku. Domenico Tedesco’s side had not failed to score in 10 games with him in charge before their trip to Dublin. “We need to be brave, with open and positive football,” Tedesco said. “It is an ideal opportunity to test us at the very highest level. England may be missing some players, but that makes them anything but weak.”
Well time will tell on that front. Kobbie Mainoo and Ivan Toney are confirmed starters, the latter getting a chance to press his claims to be Harry Kane’s understudy. You can argue about their overall quality but he seems as close as you could hope to get to Kane’s skillset so more of a straight swap should it be needed, but he could do with an international goal to boost his argument.
Here’s David Hytner’s match preview, focusing on the man who will captain the team this evening, Declan Rice. I’ll be back shortly with the teams.
It is a story that bears retelling mainly because it will make people smile. It was early last week, the England squad have joined up at St George’s Park for the Wembley friendlies against Brazil and Belgium, and Declan Rice bumps into John Stones. So, Arsenal versus Manchester City and, as everybody knows, it is Arsenal versus Manchester City after the international break – at the Etihad Stadium this Sunday. Well, not everybody, as it turns out.
“I said: ‘Big game next,’” Rice says. “And John said: ‘Who are you playing?’ And I said: ‘We’ve got you lot!’ He said: ‘Oh yeah.’ He didn’t even know they were playing us next! When he’s away from football he likes to be with his family and switch off and I get that. He likes to take one game at a time.”
Much more here:
