So football didn’t come home in the end, instead it proved to be a fairly predictable defeat that not only punctured the feelgood vibes that most of the country has been enjoying, but brought us all crashing back down to earth with a bump. That the defeat ultimately came via a penalty shootout felt almost […]
So, have we all recovered from Wednesday night then? For only the second time in their entire footballing history England will play in the final of a major tournament. In achieving that Gareth Southgate and his players are helping long-suffering England fans to banish memories of all those glorious failures of the past, especially those […]
I ended last week’s post by suggesting that it was now or never for England at a major tournament, that: “If the Three Lions are ever to truly blossom into the top team we all hope they can be, then beating the Germans, even on penalties, feels like an essential step on the way. We […]
On the face of it playing a 24-team finals tournament using 12 different venues spread across a continent in June and July 2020 was always going to be logistically challenging. However, factor in a global pandemic which brought the world as we knew it let alone international travel and football to a halt from which […]
As disappointing as Arsenal’s season has been this time around, certainly before Christmas even if things have picked up to an extent recently, perhaps the one (only?) bright spark has been the emergence of two supremely talented young players that look set to take the football world by storm at least in this country, if […]
Part 1: Clough and Taylor conquer Europe (Football Nerd Retro Ramblings- The late 70’s and the 80’s when Football was really Football: Clough and Taylor conquer Europe.) Part 2: Bob Paisley and the legendary Anfield Boot Room dominate England and Europe (Football Nerd Retro Ramblings Part 2- Bob Paisley and the legendary Anfield Boot Room […]
So there we go, that’s another Interlull disappearing from view, but what (if anything!) did we learn from it? First of all from an England perspective it seems the front three that is emerging: Sterling, Kane, Rashford/Sancho is enough to rival any in the international game. With a total of nine goals scored in the […]
Two wins out of two, six points out of six, ten goals for and just one against and a four point lead in the group already, so England are finding the going tough in their Euro 2020 qualification group then! As I pondered on this page last week (https://football-nerd.org/2019/03/22/football-nerd-weekly-ramblings-international-break-boredom-var-creates-an-un-level-playing-field-and-orient-one-step-away-from-wembley/), one wonders what strange logic anyone […]
Anyone who has read my thoughts on the international game outside of the major finals tournaments will know that I am far from enamoured with the all too frequent international breaks, pointless friendlies and the mind-numbingly tedious qualification phases. Equally I have previously struggled to find the point of the fledgling UEFA Nations League (https://football-nerd.org/2018/09/07/football-nerd-weekly-ramblings-what-is-the-point-of-the-european-nations-league/). […]
So here we are then stuck in the middle of the most annoying of Interlulls (© Arseblog), the one that halts the season just as it is starting and we are all getting ourselves back into the familiar football routine. UEFA will claim that this time they are endeavouring to make it slightly less stultifying […]
football nerd 