HOME OF THE BRAVE
A World Cup presents unique challenges for the dedicated couch potato. How to follow simultaneous games; which time zones can be used, guilt-free, to determine Tin O’Clock; and what to do when your team play a vital game in the small hours. That was the problem today for fans of reigning world champions USA! USA!! USA!!!, whose decisive Group E game against Portugal kicked off at 3am Eastern Time. Just before kick-off, the US Women’s National Team account on social media disgrace X posted a call to arms: “WAKE UPPPPPPPPP!!!!!! IT’S TIME FOR KICKOFF!!!!”
Alas, the USA! USA!! USA!!! physician forgot to heal thyself. The team played like it was they just woken up at 3am, startled by an aggravatingly jaunty alarm and unable to find any pods apart from the bloody decaf. They stumbled into the last 16 with a miserable 0-0 draw and were inches away from a seismic humiliation when the Portuguese substitute, Ana Capeta, rattled the post in injury-time. At the final whistle, even though the game was drawn, both teams looked like they had lost: Portugal were out of the competition and USA USA USA were wondering what the heck had happened to their exclamation marks.
This being the year 2023, the reaction was mature, considered and we’re not fooling anybody are we? After their initial post-match deflation, some of the players emitted a modicum of joie de vivre while talking to their families. On Fox Sports, the former star Carli Lloyd went into Royston Mode. “I have never witnessed something like that,” she said. “There’s a difference between being respectful of the fans and saying hello to your family. But to be dancing, to be smiling? I mean, the player of the match was that post. You’re lucky to not be going home right now. Do your job!”
Okay, she didn’t say that last sentence, we were just briefly possessed by the spirit of Roy Keane. The coach, Vlatko Andonovski, whose plight had us Googling the US equivalent of a P45 (who knew it was called a pink slip? Oh) said that questioning the mentality and hunger of his team was “insane”. We’ve got five more days of this polished dialogue to look forward to. USA USA USA don’t play their last-16 match, probably against Sweden, until Sunday.
In truth, the rest of the tournament feels incidental, because IT’S ONLY JOLLY WELL COMING HOME! England, who started the World Cup with two unconvincing 1-0 wins, over Haiti and Denmark, zoomed into the knockout stages by hammering China 6-1. For her latest trick, Sarina Wiegman solved the problem of losing arguably her most important player, Keira Walsh, by making her team even better. She switched from 4-3-3 to 3-4-1-2, and England took a decent China side – the champions of Asia, ahead of Japan, who beat Spain 4-0 yesterday and you know exactly where we’re going with this logic train – to the cleaners.
The remarkable Lauren James was both fantasy footballer and Fantasy Footballer. She scored two more goals – one brilliant, one even better – and got three assists. She might have had the perfect game, a hat-trick of goals and assists, but for a pedantic VAR offside on the stroke of half-time. England’s win means they will play Nigeria in the last 16 on Monday. It kicks off at 8.30am UK time, and for once even your super-slovenly Football Daily won’t need a wake-up call.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“They hit me twice in the face while grabbing me by the jacket. I was too scared and my teammates didn’t want to go home in case they were followed. They even told one of them: ‘Get out of the car or I’ll shoot you twice in the legs’” – Vélez Sarsfield’s 17-year-old striker Gianluca Prestianni describes the horrifying attack by the club’s fans on their own players following Sunday’s defeat to Huracán, which overshadowed Uruguayan defender Diego Godín’s farewell match.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
Re: yesterday’s ‘Memory Lane’ (full email edition). Well played, Football Daily, well played. Sometimes the predictably obvious is still humorous” – Kevin Carter.
With their women’s team beating Spain, Japan have done an impressive World Cup double over the vaunted practitioners of tiki taka, after the men did the same in Qatar last December. What’s more, a Tanaka scored in both matches. I do believe Japanese football has entered a golden age of tiki Tanaka” – Peter Oh.
Jeremy Humphries needs to brush up on his Dalton’s law. At that altitude the percentage of oxygen will remain the same circa 20.9% but as the ambient pressure is less than the partial pressure (pO2) will drop to circa 181 millibar. But correct no excuse, Hibs are guff” – John Brechin (and 1,056 others).
The atmosphere below the stratosphere is well mixed and the proportions of gases in it does not change at any altitude below this level. However as one gets higher above sea level the atmosphere does become less dense. This means that a lungful of air at 1000m above sea level contains less oxygen than a lungful at sea level. See here” – Martin Jachnik.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Peter Oh.
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