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“This is what happens when you apply these incredibly violent economic forces to these cities … it's happened at every World Cup I've been to,” explains our chief sports writer, Barney Ronay.Employees in Atlanta, Georgia, recently threw away tents, medication, identification and other belongings of unhoused people at a public park without warning. This led activists and a local official to point to an apparent violation of procedures created after a city employee ran over a tent with a front loader last year, killing a man. Cornelius Taylor was crushed inside his home as workers came to clear a homeless encampment.The sweep through the park occurred less than a mile from a popular spot for World Cup watch parties, drawing into focus ongoing tension over the treatment of the city’s several thousand unhoused people during the tournament. A city official said the park where about 15 people have gathered for months was “not an encampment” and that the incident was not a sweep.

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Brash midfielder has admirers in Madrid, though his World Cup displays illustrate what he can offer Xabi Alonso’s BluesEnzo Fernández was an unstoppable mix of style and spite during Argentina’s win over England. The midfielder’s first contribution during Wednesday’s semi-final in Atlanta was to plough into Elliot Anderson and clobber Manchester City’s new £116m signing round the head. He escaped without a booking, though, and made the most of some generous refereeing by showing the other side to his game when Argentina took control after going 1-0 down early in the second half.Much has already been said about England’s attempt to hold on to their lead. A particular frustration for fans who watch the Premier League every week was that not enough was done to disrupt Fernández. The Chelsea midfielder is a wonderful player in possession but can struggle when opponents run past him. That weakness has caused structural issues for Chelsea and will be a factor if they decide to sell the Argentinian this summer. Against England, though, Fernández was given space to do as he pleased during the second half. He pulled the strings next to Alexis Mac Allister and proved his big-game mentality by scoring the equaliser with a bending shot from 25 yards in the 85th minute.Fernández had clearly spotted a weakness in the England goal. He shot four times from long range and his final effort caught Jordan Pickford out. England never reacted to the danger. They stopped making Fernández look the other way. The statistics show Fernández won only three of his nine ground duels during the game. On the other hand he had more touches than anyone else on the pitch (104) and had a 98% pass completion rate.Fernández enjoyed it. On his Instagram stories he posted a picture of himself laughing with Lionel Messi and Leandro Paredes at Argentina’s training ground and used Wonderwall as the soundtrack. It will probably not endear Fernández to English crowds but he is unlikely to care. In case you haven’t noticed, he is pretty intrigued by the idea of living in Spain. There was a clash with Chelsea at the end of last season, resulting in the club banning Fernández for two games, and it will be interesting to see if the 25-year-old has done enough at the World Cup to convince Real Madrid to push for his signature.From a scouting perspective, Fernández could not have picked a better country to play against in Sunday’s final. Madrid, who have already signed Marc Cucurella from Chelsea this summer, will surely take note if Fernández stars against Spain. José Mourinho needs additions in midfield, which is where Madrid have suffered most in recent years. Luka Modric and Toni Kroos exiting left a creative vacuum and, although Madrid took the surprising step of issuing a public denial of any interest in Fernández this month, there are suggestions that they remain interested in signing the Argentinian.Chelsea’s asking price of £120m is too high. There is also an argument that Fernández’s displays on the international stage should make Chelsea think twice about agreeing to a sale if Madrid come calling. Xabi Alonso, the latest manager looking to usher in a sense of order at Stamford Bridge, needs fighters. Fernández has not always covered himself in glory but it is worth noting that he has experienced chaos with his club and stability with his country. He looks more at ease in an Argentina shirt. He has emerged as a leader for his national side and could be the same for Alonso at Chelsea.Fernández is a clutch player. He has become an expert box crasher for Chelsea and scored 12 goals last season. Fernández times his runs expertly and finishes well. He even offers a threat in the air, as Egypt discovered when he knocked them out in the last 16 with a beautiful header in added time.That was one of many examples of the former Benfica midfielder producing for Argentina in crucial moments. It was similar when they won the 2022 World Cup, although the difference then was that Fernández was not in the team at the start of the tournament. He was 21 and waited for Lionel Scaloni to give him a chance. It arrived with Argentina needing a win against Mexico in their second game. Fernández was sent on with the deadlock yet to be broken in the 57th minute. Messi scored seven minutes later and Fernández made it 2-0 with a lovely strike in the 87th minute.There was no looking back. Fernández became a fixture in midfield and was named young player of the tournament. He was catapulted into stardom and joined Chelsea for £106.7m a month after the World Cup final. It was not always easy. Fernández was rightly pilloried for being filmed taking part in a racist chant about the France team after Argentina’s triumph in the Copa América in 2024. Fences had to be mended with his Chelsea teammates that summer. Fernández apologised for the incident in an interview last year.Will it all be enough to earn Fernández a spot in the same Bernabéu dressing room as Kylian Mbappé? How he fares against the great Spanish midfield could have an impact. Fernández has worked towards this moment. He has honed his physique during his time in England. He is the Argentina player with the most sprints and high-speed running. Rodri, Dani Olmo and Fabián Ruiz will pose a tougher test than Anderson and Declan Rice, though. Fernández’s level will have to rise again if he is to become a world champion again.

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The Arsenal midfielder talks about how Luis de la Fuente has created a team built on respect and how they plan to beat Argentina in the World Cup finalThe night before the biggest day of their lives, the Spain players who were about to win the 2010 World Cup gathered in the Da Vinci Hotel in Sandton, just north of Johannesburg, drank hot chocolate, ate chocolate croissants and talked. The night before the biggest day of their lives, the Spain players seeking to emulate them 16 years later will gather in the MC Montclair in New Jersey and talk too, but there won’t be any chocolate this time. Some rituals are not to be repeated.“I think the nutritionists killed that one for us!” Mikel Merino says, hopping off the bus, freshly tuned up for the final, and heading into a tactics room at the Melanie Lane training ground, where Spain’s penultimate day of preparation is about to begin. “We used to do the Cola Cao and cakes in the under-19s and under-21s, copying the seniors, but not any more. Everyone has their own routine, but the main thing is to normalise it all: just another game, doing something we know how to do, that we’ve done since we were five years old and that we love. Treat it like something to be enjoyed, another day in our lives.”Some day. Some year too. “Spectacular,” Merino calls it. “Just the other day we were talking about this; if you had given me the chance, I would have signed up for this: going through the bad moments to have a year like this is incredible. The experiences I’ve been through, that my family have.” A Premier League title, a Champions League final, the birth of his first child and a World Cup final. And the injury that threatened it all. “I’m living every minute with an incredible joy,” he says. “Think where I was a few months ago and look where I am now. I appreciate this all the more.”The Spain coach, Luis de la Fuente, told Merino he would wait but the stress fracture in his foot defied easy analysis at first. “When they told me about my injury I didn’t think I would be at the World Cup,” the 30-year-old admits. Merino was operated on at the end of January, which actually came as relief because it meant that at least there was clarity, at least they were doing something. He spent two months on crutches. And then he went to work: hard.There were days he spent alone, others where he had help from his wife, lifting and carrying, which he said was the wrong way round: she was pregnant, but showed a strength without which he wouldn’t have made it. He learned that he was strong too, stronger than even he had imagined. But still, he played just 28 minutes between January and the World Cup, flying off and leaving his newly born son, Marco, behind. “Just being here is a victory for me,” he says. “God willing we can win it.”That Spain still can, that they made it this far, owes much to him, more super than a supersub. Like Lautaro Martínez, on the opposite side in the final, Merino has been a saviour from the bench. “Not even in my wildest dreams did I imagine this,” he says, and yet he sort of did: this is what he prepares for, what he does. He doesn’t just sit there and he certainly doesn’t sulk; he studies.At Euro 2024, on as a substitute against Germany in Stuttgart, Merino scored the 119th-minute goal that took Spain into the semi-finals. Here, he scored the 91st-minute goal against Portugal that took Spain into the quarter-finals. There was only one problem: his wife and son weren’t there in Dallas. So four days later in Los Angeles, when they were, he went and did it again against Belgium. The clock had shown 85min 32sec when he came on; it said 87:27 when he scored the winner. He had just two touches: almost as significant as the strike itself was the alertness to set the ball rolling in the first place.All three goals were celebrated the same way, famous now. Merino circled the corner flag like his father, Ángel Miguel, had done when he scored late for Osasuna in the same Stuttgart stadium 33 years earlier. Win the World Cup and he can definitively say he was the better player, surely? “My mum won’t buy that one, not even with a World Cup,” he says, laughing. “I’m proud to follow in my dad’s footsteps, to have learnt all I’ve learnt from him, and the respect will always be there … even if I have the medal!“Coming from the bench isn’t the ideal plan for any player, but when you join a national team that’s as strong as I and Lautaro have, you value every opportunity and try to help your team if you come on or if you don’t. You focus on the present, embrace the situation, and think of yourself as the guy who can do it. I have complete belief in myself, my ability: every time I come on to the pitch I think I can have impact. In the final, I hope anyone [Spanish] is the hero. The trophy belongs to all of you, not just the 11 on the pitch.”He continues: “It’s important to have ego as a footballer. With all the criticism from outside, you need it. But you also need the humility. Players come to the national team because they’re important [at their clubs] and find a new reality. It is easy to talk about ‘family’ but when things don’t go well, when they’re difficult, is when you truly see that. It’s thanks to Luis and the squad he assembled, focused on being a good human first and then being a good footballer. That helps a lot when it comes to spending a lot of time together. We know each other very well, we know when to joke, when to be silent; that’s the strength of the group. That after 46, 47 days all together, we’re still …”There’s a pause and Merino laughs. Don’t get the wrong idea. “I wouldn’t say we were bursting to spend another two months together,” he says, cracking up. “Thank God, we’re coming to an end now, but, yes, we’re a very strong group. That’s why we’re here.” There may be no hot chocolate and no croissants any more but some meet round the PlayStation, others play Mario Kart or chess, Dani Olmo and Unai Simón battling on the bus to games. Merino is old school, more about the sobremesa: long conversations after eating, no hurry to leave the table, “chatting about life, our kids, the future, holidays”.“I think a couple they’re planning to go away together [after the World Cup],” he says. “Which is … impressive … after all this time. I don’t expect to see anyone!”That collectiveness has deep roots, built on respect and over a long time. After the semi-final, De la Fuente said there was a special embrace with some, a moment’s nostalgia allowed to creep in: look what we did. His first title was the European Under-19s in 2015, 11 years ago now. In the middle of the Spain midfield that day were Merino and Rodri. Simón was on the bench. Ten of the current squad have played under De la Fuente at junior level.“I was talking to the coach about that the other day because it was the anniversary of that tournament,” Merino says. “We were saying ‘how we’ve changed’ But the essence is the same: the essence of the coach, of the players that came through. That’s the strength of the group. There are more grey hairs, more wrinkles, more worries, but the humility and commitment remains.“Luis has had [many of] us at under-17, under-19, under-21. That’s so important. Not just for him, who knows each and every one of us and knows what we can give, which is a guarantee for a coach. But for the players too: you’ve experienced everything with him, good and bad, and you don’t have to give him anything new, you know? He knows what you can give: you don’t need to pull anything out of the hat. He takes you because he knows you as a person and a player. The group knows he has total faith in them and he knows the group will give our lives for him.”Which is why when Spain lost in Scotland at the start of De la Fuente’s tenure, which from the outside seemed destined to be brief, there was belief. Since then Spain have lost once in 37 games – and that was on penalties in the Nations League final. They have won a Nations League, a Euros and now they have a World Cup final too.“Often, it’s more a case of believing than something you actually see,” Merino says. “We have a very good group, a generation of players whose level is high. We knew there was potential there, we could see things happening. Even that night in Scotland, when many people gave us up for dead or thought it wasn’t going to go well with this generation, we trusted in what we were doing, we knew the group was spectacular. And, look, it’s paid off: we were proven right.”So to Spain versus Argentina. To Messi versus Lamine. And that photo. “It’s unbelievable,” Merino says. “The first time I saw it, I thought it was AI, that it wasn’t even real. It is funny how life works sometimes: it has these special situations that you think are scripted by someone but it is just the coincidence of life. It’s unbelievable that two of the best to have played the game – hopefully Lamine in the future will be one of those – share a picture like that. It’s old, from a couple of years ago now, so I think all the jokes have been done [in here]. But it’s incredible.“What can I say about Messi? Just see the way he’s playing, how good he is at 39. I don’t know if this will be his last game, his last final. But it’s an incredible challenge to play against him. It will be an intense game, which it has to be: it’s a World Cup final. There will be contact, intense duels, but that’s why you have a referee: to control that. We have to ensure the ball moves fast. The less time it spends with each of us, the less chance they have of making fouls.”And then play, like it was any other day, like Spain always did. “I remember how it felt to watch that [2010] generation make history,” Merino says. “You think about that. You think about being a kid back then, watching players who were idols for me and my teammates. You think about how you dreamed of living that one day, how watching them motivated you. And then you think that you’re the ones representing your country now, you’re the ones this new generation of kids are watching, and it’s something magical.”

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England’s coach said ball possession is not in the team’s DNA – it’s an opinion that should disqualify him from the jobHow we talked. On late-night news shows, disembodied heads above a rolling yellow banner. On planes and trains, at bus stops and flower shops and kids’ birthday parties, trying desperately to connect the ennui of the now with the vividness of the later, trying on some level to anticipate the feelings, the blood surge, the heart rush. At the sinks in the office toilets, jerthinktheylldoit, theyactuallymighty’know, shake-shake, and your devastating analysis of the Rice-Anderson-Mainoo triple pivot gets lost in the noise of the hand-dryer.Two years of this. Countless millions sunk on tickets, hotels, Ubers, shirts, pizzas, flags, the hours spent on Google Maps trying to locate somewhere to eat after 11pm in Riga, the endless psychodrama over Jude Bellingham and whether he should have been left at home or not (turns out, not). How we bled and sweated over this, over the minor details of the journey, over whether Danny Welbeck had done enough to earn a place in the squad or not (turns out, not). All pointing towards the moment on Wednesday evening when England are 1-0 up in a World Cup semi-final against Argentina and your entire happiness rests on whether a bunch of millionaire footballers and a millionaire German coach can keep their shit together for 40 minutes, or not.Turns out, not. And out there, on the ragged shores of This England, there is a view already beginning to take shape. That while Thomas Tuchel’s substitutions may have cemented Argentina’s territorial dominance, England were basically under the pump long before that point, already dropping back and committing to a defensive rearguard. That this is in fact a wider malaise, perhaps even a kind of moral deficiency, a long and persistent pattern of failure in which – say – getting destroyed 4-1 by Germany in 2010 and losing to France in 2022 with 57% possession are basically the same offence, a common sickness, the same lozenge in different flavours.And you have to challenge these things at source, because if you don’t challenge them they become established fact, whether or not they’re actually true. Well, I’ve watched the tape back so you don’t have to. Specifically, the 13 minutes from Anthony Gordon’s goal hitting the net to the second drinks break. In those 13 minutes England have to weather quite a bit of Argentina pressure. There are corners, crosses, a header from Nicolás González that Jordan Pickford gets down well to save. But none of this is remotely out of the ordinary.Indeed pretty much as soon as Argentina kick off they gift England another opening, Lisandro Martínez letting the ball run under his foot, Morgan Rogers winning possession, and Harry Kane not quite able to control his pass. By 61 minutes England have pressed Argentina back into their own third. In the subsequent minutes Kane and Declan Rice will both have low-percentage shots from distance.The problem here is not tactics, not fatalism, not an endemic national culture of failure, but poor decision-making, perhaps reinforced by fatigue. Lionel Messi is not yet running the game, and none of what follows is inexorable or inevitable, let alone generational. The drinks break arrives and England can rest for a few minutes, perhaps even make a sub or two to freshen things up. It is at this point that Tuchel decides to blow up England’s chances of winning the World Cup.As a counterfactual, what would have a more optimistic and effective response looked like at this point? Kane was clearly out on his feet, and keeping him in play for the faint possibility of penalties in an hour was madness. So Ollie Watkins comes on to stretch the play and lead the press. This is no longer a game for Rogers and so you throw on Bukayo Saka, not just for his defensive skill but his ability to dribble his way out of pressure and feast on the spaces that will open up. Above all you trust in the process, the sense of purpose and ambition and unity that knows that World Cups are won, not survived.“If we lose, we lose in our way,” Tuchel told his players at half-time in the opening game against Croatia, a call to arms that generated some of the most thrilling football England have played at a major tournament in my lifetime. Where did that go, Thomas? Or: where did that Thomas go? Perhaps at some point on the road to the Azteca, or in the heat of Miami, Tuchel lost the simple faith that had brought England to this point.This is how you end up with six defenders on the pitch, with Saka and Watkins and Kobbie Mainoo and Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke all fresh and unused on the bench, with Cole Palmer and Phil Foden and Trent Alexander-Arnold and Adam Wharton and Morgan Gibbs-White at home. Between the second hydration break and the second Argentina goal, England had less than 8% possession, completed just five passes in 25 minutes, allowed a 39-year-old player from Major League Soccer to play exactly the sort of game he would have craved.Let us not relitigate every single one of these decisions in isolation; what is being argued here is a broader direction of travel. For an England fan this is perhaps the part that hurts the most: we believed in this team and these players right to the end. What if Tuchel never really believed in them at all?“Ball possession is not in our DNA like it is in the Spanish DNA or the Argentinian or Brazilian DNA,” Tuchel said after the game. If this was once undeniably true, it is now at best arguable and at worst a form of gaslighting that should disqualify Tuchel from the job on the spot. Rice, Saka, Mainoo, Elliot Anderson, Eze, Reece James, John Stones: based on what we know of them at club level, are these players who have trouble keeping the ball? Perhaps it is no wonder that in subsequent days reports have emerged from the England camp that the players themselves were unhappy with Tuchel’s safety-first approach: an approach that left them with no outlets, no options, no tools except the bluntest of all.These are players who want to play football, who want to express themselves, backed by thousands who emptied their life savings to travel, to pursue, to feel something. This is no longer a nation that punches pitifully below its weight at international level, that neglects the tactical and technical aspects of the game, that quivers at the thought of penalties. Is it unreasonable to demand a coach who sees what these players can do, rather than imagine what they can’t? There are those who argue soberly that changing the coach at this point is a triumph of emotion rather than reason, that there is nobody better out there, that there is a lucrative contract that needs to be honoured.But for a coach hired to win these hinge moments, detonating a World Cup semi-final feels like the ultimate red-flag behaviour. And beyond this the small-mindedness, the absence of ambition, the audacity required to neg the entire English game rather than admit to one’s own cowardice. Tuchel was hired to unleash the considerable potential of a supreme generation of English footballing talent. From what we’ve seen, it’s not immediately clear whether he can even see it.

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Head coach refuses to engage in ‘blame game’ after defeat by ArgentinaTrump joins critics of Tuchel’s tactics in World Cup semi-final eliminationThomas Tuchel has insisted he is not interested in engaging in the “blame game” over England’s World Cup elimination and vowed to close the gap on the leading nations.Even Donald Trump has joined criticism of Tuchel’s tactics in the semi-final defeat by Argentina, with the US president questioning why he made Harry Kane “a defensive player” as England attempted to hold on to a 1-0 lead. But before the third-place playoff against France in Miami on Saturday night that was described by Tuchel as “the match no one wants to play in”, England’s head coach defiantly stood by his decisions and said that he and his players must learn from their experiences.“I believe that three other nations [in the semi-finals] have almost expectations to win the title. This is not us,” said Tuchel. “France, Spain, Argentina expect almost they’re on that level that they expect to win. We are not there yet. There is still a gap to close. This is what we will do from tomorrow. We will not stop. We will not stop hunting. We will not stop challenging. We have things to improve in a football matter. And this is the context. So there is not a lot of room for drama. If drama is needed, if the blame game needs to be played, OK, we can do that. But I have the right to not engage.”Asked whether he had any regrets over his decisions after 48 hours of reflection, Tuchel added: “I felt that we had to do something different for the team, and I took a decision, trusting my instinct, my intuition, my experience, trusting my competitiveness, and I took the decision in order to help the team and get the result. But the decisions are made under stress. The decisions are made in game. I would regret it if we didn’t react. But I have no regrets over the decision itself.”Tuchel also dismissed Trump’s comments that were made earlier during a press conference with the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino. “They took the lead, and they took their best player and put him on defence,” said Trump. “We have got to be a little offensive, right? But no I’m not going to call it. What do I know about coaching? It was unusual.”Tuchel at first questioned whether “you use Donald Trump as your witness?” when asked about his comments. But he was adamant that Kane had merely been following instructions.“We defended in a deep block. That’s what you do if you defend in a block. You defend in a block,” he said. “We were not active enough. We could not escape the deep block. That is what teams build: togetherness and mentality is translated to in football terms. We defend as a 10 and as an 11. Together as a team, the team spirit, the togetherness, the mentality that this team built in the last six and a half weeks, is not to be questioned.”England trained at their Kansas City base for the last time on Friday but their arrival to Miami – the venue for their quarter-final victory over Norway – was delayed by thunderstorms in the area. Jude Bellingham and Jordan Henderson were among the players who were pictured sampling a barbecue on Thursday night. John Stones admitted that it had been hard to process the pain of defeat.“We are still going through a lot of suffering and pain,” he said. “The nature of this game is we as players take things very personally. That’s why we are where we are and why we’re always striving for more. I think everyone felt that [we could win it]. That’s why to go out in a semi-final hurts even more because we believed so much and didn’t get to where we believe we should be.”

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The little maestro has hitherto lived in the shadow of Maradona who has for so long coloured the soul and defined the passion of football in ArgentinaIt is time to consign Diego Maradona’s Hand of God to a museum piece. For 40 years that moment and Maradona’s unforgettable “goal of the century” coloured the soul and passion of Argentinian football. Today things are very different, and the main reason is Lionel Messi. By asserting himself over the memory of Maradona, Messi is establishing a new Argentina.An impressive 2–1 semi-final victory over England showcased a revitalised Argentina who go into Sunday’s final against Spain relying on a simple, powerful weapon: excellent football.“For English football, this is more painful than the Hand of God,” Tomás Abraham says. He has dedicated his life to writing, studying philosophy and analysing society and the human condition, although his greatest passion lies elsewhere: football.At 79, Abraham organises his daily schedule around Champions League and Premier League matches, which he follows from his spacious flat in Colegiales – a trendy neighbourhood in Buenos Aires – or from his book-filled office, where he shuts himself away for hours to write.“The English consider the Hand of God to be illegal, a cheat,” Abraham says. “And this hurts all the more because they were defeated by a superior team that they were particularly keen to beat. The wound runs deeper.”For many years, a large proportion of Argentinians looked down on Messi, clinging to the Maradona myth. Messi couldn’t be Messi; he had to be Maradona. While the rest of the world dreamed of having their own Messi, a staggering number of Argentinians maintained that he would dissolve like a sugar lump in a cup of tea the moment he came up against a couple of tough defenders in the Copa Libertadores.Which is why Messi’s greatest triumph is that he has ceased to be viewed through the prism of Maradona and earned the recognition – and unanimous affection – of his people.Maradona was more than a footballer; he was also the essence of Argentinidad, or at least a certain kind of Argentinidad. For a long time, it was impossible to understand Maradona without first understanding Argentina, but there came a point when it became impossible to understand Argentina without first understanding Maradona, so intertwined and similar had the two become.Maradona embodied the brilliant and haughty Argentina, the Argentina convinced of its destiny as a superpower. That is also why Maradona felt entitled to express his opinion and pass judgment on everything: on George Bush and the pope, on Fifa, on his idols Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez. He could say one thing and its opposite, loving and hating the same person in a matter of months.A tremendous talent in many respects and often kind-hearted, Maradona was also adept at disparaging, hurting, attacking and provoking. Ultimately, he resembled his country too closely, with its great lights and inevitable shadows.As the product of a good state education, Maradona was a man who understood the meaning and weight of every word. He had a talent for expressing himself, despite having been born and raised in very humble circumstances.Messi, a child of a somewhat more spineless Argentina, lacks that talent; his vocabulary is limited, his sentences are short and lack depth, although they have improved markedly in recent years. This is how he feels comfortable, and this is how he has shaped a different kind of Argentinian football identity (and Argentinian identity).Carlos Mac Allister played alongside Maradona for Argentina. He is also the father of Alexis Mac Allister. He has been in the US for weeks watching his son at the World Cup and will be at the final.“The difference between Diego and Leo is their private lives,” he says. “And that’s not to speak ill of Diego. I’m not going to explain what he himself has already said. Thanks to Diego being Diego, Messi is Messi today. With an understanding of what happened, Messi was able to work out how to take the game to the next level.”Another explanation for why the Hand of God is in a symbolic museum lies in the inquest seeking to establish why Maradona died on 25 November 2020 and whether his death could have been prevented. The inquest was not front-page news here, nor did it generate sustained public interest. It was as if Argentinians, ashamed of the harsh circumstances in which Maradona died, preferred to subtly turn the page. And what better way to do so than by embracing Messi?After the victory over England, Messi expressed moving words for Maradona, who had once criticised his lack of leadership: “I’m sure Diego is enjoying this immensely from up above. Let him enjoy it, because it’s a gift for him too.”To dwell on the Hand of God is to delve almost into football prehistory, to talk about something no longer possible, as the columnist Héctor Gambini pointed out in Clarín, Argentina’s most widely read newspaper.“None of the players who took part in this Argentina v England match had even been born when Maradona scored his immortal goals,” he wrote. “Goals that VAR would have disallowed: the first for a handball by the Blues’ No 10. The second for a foul by the Blues’ No 2 [Sergio Batista] on the Whites’ No 4 [Glenn Hoddle], following which Argentina regained possession, the ball ended up at Maradona’s feet and, 13 seconds later, in the English net.”Mariano Israelit, one of Maradona’s closest friends, says Maradona is no longer No 1. “Diego was the greatest of all … up to a point. But Messi has now surpassed him; what Messi has achieved is unsurpassable. Diego played for a team like Napoli, which was basically 10 donkeys and Diego. Messi played for a Barcelona side surrounded by stars. We have to be realistic and honest; I take my hat off to Messi.”Israelit criticises the English stance on their 1986 game by harking back to the 1966 World Cup final. “An Englishman has no right whatsoever to say that Maradona scored with his hand or that he cheated, because the only tournament they ever won, they won with a goal that wasn’t a goal.”What can we expect from the final? Abraham does not look favourably on the European champions. “They ignore everything we’ve contributed to Spanish football: Alfredo Di Stéfano and Lionel Messi,” he says.Argentina has enriched Spanish football, and Spanish clubs have helped Argentinian players develop. The list of Argentinians who have played and managed in Spain is dizzying: Di Stéfano and Messi, yes, but also Mario Kempes, Maradona, César Luis Menotti, Carlos Bilardo, Lionel Scaloni. The country’s greatest players and managers. And thousands more.Mac Allister highlights that Argentina are no longer just Messi, as they were at the start of the World Cup. The team have woken up. “I see an Argentina team that had been playing at 60% of its capacity, but which played at 90% against England,” Mac Allister says. “Against Spain, it will need to play at 100%. One thing is clear: we were playing with heart and soul, but we were lacking a bit of finesse. Not any more – Argentina dominated England.”Or, as the Uruguayan journalist Emiliano Hernández Pereyra puts it, fed up with many of his compatriots – frustrated after a very poor World Cup – criticising neighbouring Argentina: Argentina make them jealous.“These lads have everything I want for my country, but there are a lot of stubborn Uruguayans. Do you think Argentina are just lucky? Please … It’s an extraordinary team; they’ve got a certain something that no other team has.”

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Wildfires, transport issues and the appearance of the president could overshadow the final for a city that has embraced the tournamentThe thick smoke that has engulfed New York and much of the eastern seaboard over the last few days has drawn wry smiles in Dallas and Los Angeles, where locals will watch on with a sense of schadenfreude when the World Cup final takes place in the New York New Jersey Stadium (usually known as the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey) on Sunday.The Dallas and Los Angeles stadiums, which were passed over when Fifa awarded the final in February 2024, are more impressive venues without the same climatic risks as New York, which was chosen because of its global appeal and favourable timezone for European television audiences.Initial concerns over staging the final at MetLife focused on the extreme heat that often grips New York in the summer, leading to playing conditions that Chelsea’s Enzo Fernández described as “very dangerous” after last year’s Club World Cup semi-final, with the poor air quality this week presenting Fifa with an unexpected curveball.Wildfires in Canada’s wildlands have led to thick smoke spreading south across many of the eastern US cities, with an air quality advisory altered from “unhealthy” to “very unhealthy” late on Thursday.New York City Hall’s emergency management officials issued a citywide code red for Tuesday to Thursday, telling residents to stay inside unless absolutely necessary and to avoid strenuous exercise, hardly conditions for the biggest match in global sport, which is expected to attract a worldwide television audience of 1.6 billion.The smoke was clearly visible in downtown Manhattan, unlike the Statue of Liberty across the Hudson River that was temporarily hidden from view, with conditions so bad that many flights from New Jersey’s Newark airport were cancelled.Conditions began to improve on Friday and Fifa officials are confident the situation will improve for Sunday, particularly as rain is forecast for Saturday that it is hoped will clear the worst of the smoke, but sport has been affected.A National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) match between Gotham and Washington Spirit in Queens on Wednesday took place in an orange-brown haze, and the players were ordered to take an additional two breaks during each half in accordance with the NWSL’s poor air policy.Given the furore surrounding Fifa’s introduction of hydration breaks at the World Cup, the prospect of two more stoppages would cause further outrage.The weather problems are particularly unfortunate for New York, because although the final venue was chosen with a global audience in mind, the city has really embraced the World Cup.Although the New York Knicks’ historic NBA championship win over San Antonio Spurs overshadowed the start of the marathon tournament last month, it has developed genuine momentum since.All seven previous games at MetLife have been sold out, and restaurant and bar bookings to watch England’s semi-final defeat by Argentina this week were hard to come by.The biggest remaining issue affecting the final beyond the weather is likely to involve getting to the stadium, which is regarded by NFL fans as famously inaccessible, given limited public transport and the perils of negotiating the Lincoln Tunnel, which links Manhattan with New Jersey.To compound matters, parking is available only for guests and VIPs on Sunday, and the cost of bus and rail travel has been increased significantly for the tournament. A joint intervention from the governments of New York and New Jersey, who have provided a subsidy, has led to an initial matchday return price of $150 (£112) to use the New Jersey transit trains being reduced to $98, but it remains very high for a 20-minute journey. For those balking at such prices, shuttle buses from Manhattan will be available for $20.Donald Trump is likely to make a rather showier entrance, with his helicopter Marine One due to fly over the stadium before landing at nearby Teterboro airport, and although Fifa will not say so publicly, managing the president is its other remaining concern. After the controversy caused by Trump appearing to gatecrash Chelsea’s Club World Cup final celebrations, which left the captain, Reece James, particularly bemused, Fifa has attempted to get ahead by confirming that he will present the trophy with the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino.A precedent was set four years ago when the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, placed a traditional Arab cloak on Lionel Messi’s shoulders before Argentina’s captain collected the trophy from Infantino. With Trump, there is no knowing what he may have planned.

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The boy in the baby bath has unbelievably become the successor to Messi at Barcelona and now, maybe, on the world stage too“Maybe Lionel Messi has picked up lots of babies, maybe it’s chance, but for those of us who have faith, who believe in something beyond, ‘chance’ is God’s pseudonym when he doesn’t want to sign his name,” Luis de la Fuente says. “In life, everything happens for a reason. Sometimes it’s true that the circle isn’t closed, but in my view there’s something else, something … I don’t know, mystical, spiritual.”Contemplate the scene, gaze upon the image of this World Cup, and you may be inclined to agree with Spain’s coach, to reach out and touch faith. How else to comprehend this? You will have seen the picture and will certainly see it again, and still it won’t make sense.The man who took it, the photographer Joan Monfort, says he didn’t believe in destiny before but does now. In it, Messi, the greatest footballer of all time, bathes an unknown baby with a cherubic smile. The child, chosen at random and surrounded by bubbles, is Lamine Yamal. The footballer De la Fuente says was “touched by God’s wand” was baptised by him too.On Sunday they face each other in the World Cup final.The photograph was taken around Christmas 2007. Sport newspaper was putting together a charity calendar on behalf of Barcelona and Unicef, a studio set up in the away dressing room at the Camp Nou. Each player had a month and appeared with a child. Ronaldinho, the star, was July. Messi was January. Lamine Yamal was four months old. His mum, Sheila, had put him into a draw to take part. Monfort got the idea the night before when bathing his daughter, taking a plastic tub and a rubber duck with him. Although the baby was tiny and Messi was timid, with Sheila’s help he got a shot he was happy with.And then, well, everyone forgot about it. Monfort left it in a drawer, another photo among thousands, no idea of a significance it didn’t yet have. The image was lost and then it was found. During Euro 2024 Lamine Yamal’s father, Mounir, posted it on social media, with the tag “the beginning of two legends”.Wait, what? How had this happened? How had that baby, chosen by chance, become Lamine Yamal? How, in fact, had Messi, a shy 19-year-old, become Messi? Of all the people in all the world how had they ended up together? How had no one seen this sooner? How on earth, why on earth, had Mounir not shared it before? Where did he suddenly find it? How had Lamine Yamal not known? When Monfort was introduced to him a while later, Lamine Yamal said he didn’t remember it. Well of course not, he was four months old.“What if it’s not actually Lamine?” Monfort had worried at the time, suddenly thrust into the spotlight. Which was understandable: there was no way this could be real. Stop for a moment and it messes with your mind. Mounir’s timing, it turned out, was perfect. Four days later Lamine Yamal scored that goal against France which took Spain to the Euro 2024 final and announced his arrival. It’s like the creation, Monfort reckoned, although one day in Rocafonda, where Lamine Yamal grew up, Mounir later joked with him that maybe things were the other way round, maybe it was Lamine giving Messi life.Unicef too posted that, yes, this was real. It was July 2026, and still it felt the need. Then on Wednesday when Argentina beat England, it got even more absurd: this was the first portrait of the poster stars of the biggest sporting event on the planet, and Monfort’s phone rang off the hook again.Not long ago Lamine Yamal was shown the photo. “God willing, I can face him in the final.” It still felt unlikely but if God had willed it this far, why stop now? So much had happened; some things had needed to not happen too: Spain and Argentina were supposed to play the Finalissima in March. How much better that they play here instead. Lamine Yamal smiled as he looked at the picture. “I’ve grown a little bit … and so has Leo,” he said.They had done so in public, under pressure, the weight of expectation. The next time Lamine Yamal appeared in a photo with Messi it was at Barcelona’s training ground. He was still small, barely 11 or 12; and by then Messi was, well, Messi. Although this was a fan meeting the planet’s best footballer, Lamine Yamal was no longer just a kid from Catalonia who had won a draw. Spotted playing for CF La Torreta in Mataro, he had joined La Masia. He recalls the first time he felt something like fame, exposure coming one day when he was down the park, aged 13 and already that kid from Barcelona.Messi knows that well, and it is not all they share. He had come from Argentina to Catalonia aged 12, famously “signed” on a napkin in the Pompeia tennis club. Lamine Yamal’s dad is from Morocco, his mum from Equatorial Guinea. Born in Catalonia, he signals Rocafonda’s 08304 postcode when he scores. It is a barrio where half of the population is at risk of poverty and about 20% are Moroccan, where he played on the gravel plaza of Joan XXIII. He could have represented Morocco, but had no doubt choosing Spain. Messi could have done too but chose Argentina, clinging to a country that took longer to truly embrace him than they might have and now couldn’t love him more.“Messi is the best,” Lamine Yamal has said. Listen to him talk about Messi and the first thing you may notice is how rarely he does, the answers a little evasive, almost formulaic. When he does talk there is respect, admiration, no doubt that the Argentinian is the finest footballer there has been, but not the excitement awoken by Neymar. In part that is strategic, seen perhaps in choosing the same sponsors – you can’t compete with Messi, can’t go up against him; but there is something simpler: Neymar was his idol, the player he identified with most.In Lamine Yamal’s character, his background, even in elements of his play, there’s more of Neymar than Messi: in the fun, the flash, the mischief, the glint in his eye. “Life is for living,” he says. He was seven when he first saw Neymar at the Camp Nou; yes, Messi was there, but Neymar was different, captivating. That was the football that came to him, a player who sees in himself the ideal between the street and the school. It was Neymar he watched on videos, Neymar he tried to emulate, Neymar he visited last summer in Brazil.No pressure, kid. “Pressure? No, Lamine Yamal said before the semi-final, inviting the world to his 19th birthday, enjoying the spotlight. Earlier this season he had celebrated his goals by performing his own coronation and if he has stopped now, if there have been moments when he has revealed the weight of responsibility, if he has mentioned his “internal abyss”, he has embraced the pressure, faced it, owned it. “Ego Yamal,” his headband reads. Above all, he has met it.“I would like to be everything that everyone wants me to be,” he said in the spring. “Thing is, people want you to score 100 goals at 16. I would like to as well.” He has more than 50. He is the youngest debutant at Barcelona, their youngest goalscorer too – a record that once belonged to Messi. “I want to follow my own path, that’s all; I have no intention of playing like him or anything like it. There is mutual respect; we both know I don’t want to be Messi,” he told CBS, noting: “I knew that [comparison] question was coming” – yet there are echoes there.If there’s a Lamine Yamal goal, and there is, one he keeps on scoring, it looks a lot like the goal that was Messi’s once. “I didn’t like comparing Messi to Maradona, but Messi didn’t make it easy; I don’t like comparing Lamine to Messi but Lamine doesn’t make it easy either,” Jorge Valdano, the former Argentina international, said. Xavi Hernández, who gave Lamine Yamal his Barcelona debut, didn’t want to either but also couldn’t help it. De la Fuente says: “There are geniuses, those who are touched by God’s wand and there are few of those: Lamine or Messi.” Lamine Yamal scored his first World Cup goal aged 18, wearing 19. Twenty years earlier, so had Messi: same age, same number.There is an evolution that awaits too. In a fascinating recent interview with El País, Lamine Yamal noted that Messi, like him, always finds himself marked by three men and that he will surely follow the Argentinian into a different part of the field. “The only place where three men can’t mark you is in the middle and I will end up there: they can’t defend me there,” he said.Messi turns 40 in June 2027 and Lamine Yamal insisted he would not be playing at that age. That lies a long way ahead, and who knows what he will think then. What lies behind has happened so fast, faster even than Messi. You can’t help taking a flight of fantasy, wondering where it will deliver him, and them, whether this era that opens before him will belong to him. Once Spaniards might have wondered what would have happened if Messi had chosen Spain, if on top of it all they had the planet’s best player; now they can’t help wondering if they may actually have him anyway. Even , if only out of respect, they have to wait until the day Messi departs. Until then, Messi has shown at this tournament, no one compares.Lamine Yamal, likened by De la Fuente to Michelangelo or Salvador Dalí, has played 151 games for Barcelona and won three league titles. This isn’t supposed to be possible. At his age Messi, who also wasn’t supposed to be possible, had played 34 and scored nine. Lamine Yamal has won a European Championship with his country, secured the day after he turned 17, a schoolboy sitting exams while leading Spain to glory. Messi took until he was 34 to win an international trophy with Argentina, but he hasn’t stopped since. The 2022 World Cup was supposed to be his last, a man on a mission, a cause, the greatest story ever told. But somehow here he is again, the tale taller all the time: this is his third World Cup final and he seeks another title, a fourth international trophy in a row, at an age when he might have walked away years ago.And Lamine Yamal stands before him, a winner already when he is still only starting out: a passing of the torch for Messi to put on hold, if only for a day. “There is a new generation of players that’s very good and has many years ahead,” Messi said. “If I had to choose one, it would be Lamine. Without doubt, he’s the best.” Lamine Yamal said: “If we meet on the pitch there will be mutual respect because for me he is the best in history.” For the first time and surely the last, on Sunday, in the most global city of all, they will. In the World. Cup. Final. Where to even start with the symbolism? Where to find an explanation for the impossible?Spain versus Argentina. European champions versus South American champions. Lionel Messi versus Lamine Yamal. The 19-year-old at his first World Cup, the age Messi was when they first met, versus the 39-year-old at his sixth and surely last. The teenager then who went on to mark a generation, now a father, against the teenager called to mark the next, his anointed one. The boy handed Messi’s No 10 like Messi was handed Maradona’s, the boy handed to him almost 20 years ago, unknown then, an icon now, the boy in the bath.

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Two minutes and 55 seconds. That’s how long I really had hope of reaching the World Cup final. And it didn’t kill meIn her book Hope in the Dark the author Rebecca Solnit examines if it is possible to have hope when you consider all of human suffering. She quotes the Bulgarian writer Maria Popova: “Critical thinking without hope is cynicism, but hope without critical thinking is naivety.” By all accounts it is a compelling argument for hope as a catalyst for social change.Meanwhile, Graham Burrell wrote: “It is the hope that kills you” following Lincoln City’s 2-1 home defeat to Wigan in 2024. “I feel perhaps our playoff push was finally killed off yesterday.”It is hard to know where exactly to place that defeat at Sincil Bank in the pantheon of human suffering. And the same goes for England’s capitulation to Argentina on Wednesday.And it is also hard to find the first person who ever said: “It is the hope that kills you.” It could be anyone from William Shakespeare to Peter Ustinov. Many have developed it. Ted Lasso, for example: “So, I’ve been hearing this phrase y’all got over here that I ain’t too crazy about. ‘It’s the hope that kills you’. Y’all know that? I disagree, you know? I think it’s the lack of hope that comes and gets you. See, I believe in hope. I believe in belief.”And then there’s Jackson Lamb from Slow Horses. “It’s not the hope that kills you. It’s knowing it’s the hope that kills you – that kills you.”You wonder if England would have fared better in those last 30 minutes with Lasso or Lamb in the dugout. Their respective approaches would have been slightly different. Lasso certainly wouldn’t have played a back six. They wouldn’t sit back. Lamb would call them all idiots and tell them to get on with it. Arm round the shoulder or kick up the arse – the full spectrum is here.But what any England fan, or any sports fan knows – is that hope, as a pure emotion, is perhaps the most incapacitating. Hope isn’t immediate. Hope doesn’t really exist at the start of the game. It certainly plays second fiddle to fear. Fear during the buildup, fear during the ludicrous 10-second countdown, fear as the ball rolls back to Jordan Pickford. I could feel, almost hear, my heart beating at twice its normal rate.As the game settles, the heart settles. Well, settles is perhaps the wrong word. It is base-level angst with little pockets of rage as Giuliano Simeone harries and hacks and kicks and growls. Where’s the yellow card? Are the conspiracists right? He fails to kick Marc Guéhi and then goes with his head like a shark biting thin air too far out of the water. By now, even well-timed tackles by Argentinians are evil. Fouls by English players are justified. Another pint of myopia, please.Half-time is where the first waves of pessimism appear. The longer this goes, the more likely Argentina will do it. They know how to do it. I say meaningless things like “muscle memory”. I say meaningful things like “wily bastards”.And then the goal. The perfect cross. The perfect finish. It is an outpouring of joy and relief and possibility. It is the first real moment of hope, combined with the “Well, at least they need two now” mindset – we’ve all watched England for long enough.The only other ecstatic moment is the Djed Spence tackle. Spence has looked so relaxed he’s barely bothered about any of this. Just be surprisingly brilliant and then go home and do the washing-up. But that celebration – like Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci together. “Yes, Djed!” I shout. The greatest England tackle since Eric Dier on Sergio Ramos – and wildly more important. If things had gone differently, that would headline your montage. That would be one of your statues.Now, there’s a chance that someone else in the game has mentioned England dropping deep already. Was it Thomas Tuchel? Was it the players? Is it just English paralysis? Chances are you don’t need another tactical deep dive – I know I don’t.This is about the few minutes where the hope was genuine. Where I started to think about a World Cup final. The enjoyable part of the tournament isn’t the games, it’s just still being in the thing. It’s being able to watch other matches knowing you still have a dog in the fight. The actual game itself is the ordeal you have to endure.The retreat had already started before the hydration break. But how many of us said: “It’s too soon to defend this.” With 10 men at the Azteca it made sense. Even if England are able to see this out, can I handle torture? But time keeps going, and with every missed chance, with every save, hope beganto creep in.In the 82nd minute, Nico O’Reilly blocks a pass and chases it down and gets another block. We are in their half – a foreign land. I shouted to my Football Weekly colleague John Brewin: “That’s saved eight seconds.” A minute later Lionel Messi lofts a cross harmlessly out of play for a goal-kick. That was the moment I thought maybe. Just maybe.I began to think about England being in a World Cup final – selfishly, what a dream few days to be in New York, preview podcasts and TalkSport shows writing themselves. I could do a column about hope – but about the other hope. What a privilege.Goal-kick to England. Scoring a goal is hard, even if you have Messi. John Stones is doing keepy-ups. Pickford launches the goal-kick up field and O’Reilly gets on the end of it. Throw to Argentina deep in their half. “Eighty-four minutes on the clock now,” says Guy Mowbray. “I keep looking at that clock and thinking it’s going ever so slow,” says Alan Shearer.84’24. Enzo Fernández shoots from distance. Pickford tips it over. It’s going over. But it’s OK. Just keep your shape. 84’55. Enzo has too much time on the edge of the box. Enzo shoots. Enzo scores – and we all know it’s done.Two minutes and 55 seconds. That’s how long I really genuinely had hope. And it didn’t kill me. It was thrilling, terrifying and life-affirming. I have spoken before about whether I’ll ever be ready to see England’s men win anything – and maybe I’ll never have to test that emotion. But for the time being hope is actually enough for me. Just a morsel of it. If hope can be a catalyst for social change, if it can help us change the world, then it can help us imagine Adam Wharton lifting the European Championship trophy in 2028, even just for a fleeting moment.

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Spain’s streak started after a defeat in 2024 but Argentina are no slouches – they are on an unbeaten run of 14 matchesSpain look unstoppable. Their 2-0 victory over France meant that they have not lost a game in normal or extra time for 37 games, which Opta revealed has equalled the best such stretch by a European team. However, Spain did lose the final of the 2025 Nations League to Portugal on penalties.Their “unbeaten run” matches the efforts of Italy between October 2018 and September 2021, a streak which included Roberto Mancini’s side winning Euro 2020. Unlike Spain, Italy were truly unbeaten.No team from South America has ever gone as long without defeat. Brazil went 36 matches unbeaten between December 1993 and January 1996, winning a World Cup along the way, while Argentina equalled their great rivals from July 2019 to November 2022. The latter’s run might have been ended by a stunning loss to Saudi Arabia in Qatar, but recovering from that to become world champions was an emphatic response.For Spain to have reached this point is no surprise when you consider their history. They are responsible for six of the 11 instances of a European nation going unbeaten for at least 25 games. Five of these periods have occurred within the past 22 years, emphasising how dominant Spain have been for the last two decades.They can call upon players with even better records. Fabián Ruiz has represented his country 49 times without losing (shootouts notwithstanding). Despite the Paris Saint-Germain midfielder proving his elite ability in recent years, Ruiz has not played the most minutes in Spain’s current unbeaten stretch. He’s not even in the top five.The leading man has been Marc Cucurella, with Unai Simón, Aymeric Laporte, Lamine Yamal and Mikel Oyarzabal completing the quintet upon which Luis de la Fuente has leant most heavily.The Spain manager has used 62 players in the 37 matches, which highlights the depth of talent his country has produced. Or perhaps it suggests a degree of indecisiveness on De la Fuente’s part. Hardly: of the 15 players who have made at least 20 appearances in the unbeaten run, 10 started the World Cup semi-final, four came on as substitutes and Martín Zubimendi was an option on the bench.It was a 1-0 loss to Colombia at the London Stadium in March 2024 that drew the start line for Spain’s current unbeaten run. The streak inevitably includes victories over Europe’s lesser lights in tournament qualifiers, but also 11 matches against Brazil, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal.Argentina are unbeaten for 14 matches and it’s worth noting they have won them all. They’ve also lost three times since Spain were last beaten, though. The weight of recent history remains firmly on the side of De la Fuente’s men.

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Danny Murphy’s decision to start talking about his deceased cat will haunt the rest of his career while Christina Unkel’s referee analysis was no-nonsense and to the pointThe final may be Argentina v Spain, but ardent media watchers in the UK know that in broadcasting terms, a World Cup is always a domestic battle between the BBC and ITV. So who won on these important criteria?ITV deployed a stellar line-up, headed up by two stars in the professional curmudgeon Roy Keane and, at least while Australia were involved, the professional Ange, Ange Postecoglou. Jobi McAnuff was very effective and unlucky to get shunted mostly to late night games and the effervescent Ian Wright is always watchable. It even got over the early blunder of appearing to put honour-laden Emma Hayes in what was quickly dubbed the “tactical kitchen”.The BBC clearly hasn’t quite fathomed its post-Lineker roster, where he acted as host and a pundit who had been there and done that at a World Cup. You either love or loathe the energy of Micah Richards, but from the BBC ranks the former England No 1 Joe Hart was the one who stood out, with Alan Shearer and Wayne Rooney often coming across as pedestrian as an England backline faced with an Argentina attack. Winner: ITVAn endless puzzle for armchair viewers is how commentators and former players can end up getting paid to talk through some of the biggest matches in the world, and somehow sound bored and slightly resentful about being there – call it the Mark Lawrenson syndrome. Jonathan Pearce (BBC) and Lee Dixon (ITV) were the usual guilty parties in that regard, with Ally McCoist’s relentless enthusiasm the polar opposite. In the end the BBC has the strongest lineup, with Guy Mowbray a lot easier on the ear than Sam Matterface. Winner: BBCPost-match interviews made headlines on both channels for very different reasons. Harry Kane losing his voice after England’s win at the Azteca against Mexico was one of the most unintentionally funny sporting interviews of all time for the BBC – and endlessly remixable. Gabriel Clarke’s actions after England quarter-final with Norway for ITV did not go down so well. His relaying of Tuchel’s criticism of the performance directly to Jude Bellingham appearing to reopen old wounds between the manager and his star player. Winner: BBCChristina Unkel’s contributions for ITV were head and shoulders above those Darren Cann made for the BBC. She was straightforward and no-nonsense, while he couched his views in so many caveats as to make them, sadly, almost pointless. Winner: ITVNeither offering was in the league of Nessun Dorma in 1990 or ITV’s unexpected Mexico 1986 banger, but Rascal Flatts’ Life is a Highway began to grate quite early in the tournament, leaving the BBC’s animated titles, with memorable scenes and figures from World Cup history recreated, looking and sounding vastly superior. Winner: BBCDanny Murphy’s inexplicable decision to start talking about his deceased cat called Bob who ran away in a Royal Mail van just because Norway had bought on a player called Oscar Bobb will haunt the rest of his career. “The game’s not that bad,” deadpanned the BBC’s Steve Bower in response. Winner: In a way, all of us. Except BobMuch was made in advance of the BBC’s decision not to head to the US, but instead use a digital studio to make it look like they were in front of landmarks from host cities. It was a very public cry of “we don’t have the money we used to”. ITV based themselves in New York for the duration, meaning their pundits were still far away from action in Mexico, Canada or the US west coast, but they looked more at home in the US. Ironically, as soon as the BBC did head for the US, England found themselves coming home. Winner: ITVITV deployed a stellar lineup, headed up by two stars in professional curmudgeon Roy Keane and at least while Australia were involved, “professional Ange”, Ange Postecoglou. Jobi McAnuff was very effective and unlucky to get shunted mostly to late night games and the effervescent Ian Wright is always watchable. They even got over the early blunder of appearing to put honour-laden Emma Hayes in what was quickly dubbed the “tactical kitchen”.The BBC clearly haven’t quite fathomed their post-Lineker roster, where he acted as host and a pundit who had been there and done that at a World Cup. You either love or loathe the energy of Micah Richards, but from the BBC ranks former England No 1 Joe Hart was the one who stood out, with Alan Shearer and Wayne Rooney often coming across as pedestrian as an England backline faced with an Argentina attack. Winner: ITVAn endless puzzle for armchair viewers is how commentators and former players can end up getting paid to talk through some of the biggest matches in the world, and somehow sound bored and slightly resentful about being there – call it the Mark Lawrenson syndrome. Jonathan Pearce (BBC) and Lee Dixon (ITV) were the usual guilty parties in that regard, with Ally McCoist’s relentless enthusiasm the polar opposite. In the end the BBC has the strongest lineup, with Guy Mowbray a lot easier on the ear than Sam Matterface. Winner: BBCPost-match interviews made headlines on both channels for very different reasons. Harry Kane losing his voice after England’s win at the Azteca against Mexico was one of the most unintentionally funny sporting interviews of all time for the BBC – and endlessly remixable. Gabriel Clarke’s actions after England’s quarter-final with Norway for ITV did not go down so well. His relaying of Thomas Tuchel’s criticism of the performance directly to Jude Bellingham appeared to reopen old wounds between the manager and his star player. Winner: BBCChristina Unkel’s contributions for ITV were head and shoulders above those Darren Cann made for the BBC. She was straight-forward and no-nonsense, while he couched his views in so many caveats as to make them, sadly, almost pointless. Winner: ITVNeither offering were in the league of Nessun Dorma in 1990 or ITV’s unexpected Mexico 1986 banger, but Rascal Flatts’ Life is a Highway began to grate quite early in the tournament, leaving the BBC’s animated titles with iconic scenes and figures from World Cup history recreated looking and sounding vastly superior. Winner: BBCDanny Murphy’s inexplicable decision to start talking about his deceased cat called Bob who ran away in a Royal Mail van just because Norway had bought on a player called Oscar Bobb will haunt the rest of his career. “The game’s not that bad,” deadpanned the BBC’s Steve Bower in response. Winner: In a way, all of us. Except Bob

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Technical class in the fiercest battles was again lacking at the World Cup but there is hope amid the soul-searchingThe post-match inquest into England’s elimination was almost over when Thomas Tuchel offered a revealing analysis of Argentina’s knack of instigating late comebacks at this World Cup.“In their culture, ball possession plays a crucial role. It starts from a young age,” he said. “That is in the DNA and it demands a lot of self-confidence – natural self‑confidence to always want the ball, to always be in the gaps, to always define yourself through the ball. I think that is a crucial thing: to show courage.”This time, it wasn’t meant as a dig at his own players. But after the latest example of England surrendering a lead that can be traced all the way back to the 2002 World Cup in Japan, when Michael Owen scored in the 23rd minute against Brazil before the team tried to defend for their lives and failed, there was no avoiding the underlying message.Despite the Football Association’s best efforts to produce players who are able to “intelligently dominate possession” as outlined when it launched its “England DNA philosophy” at St George’s Park back in December 2014, there is still a shortage of top-class central midfielders with the technical skills required to win a World Cup semi-final.Tuchel’s epitaph for this tournament will be the statistic that England had only 12% of possession between Anthony Gordon opening the scoring in the 55th minute and Lautaro Martínez’s winner in the second minute of stoppage time. Equally as damning is that, of the 39 passes they attempted in that period, 12 came from the goalkeeper, Jordan Pickford, while only five took place in Argentina’s half.That indicates – as well as there being a lack of forward runners to put the pressure back on opponents that included a 38-year-old Nicolás Otamendi in defence for the last 20 minutes – that England were unable to play their way out of trouble when Argentina pressed high up the pitch and ended up giving the ball straight back.“England teams sense changing moments in the game both in and out of possession, reacting instinctively and intelligently,” reads the DNA philosophy that was devised by Dan Ashworth, who was the FA’s director of elite development in 2014. Ashworth returned to St George’s Park last May after his ill-fated spell as Manchester United’s sporting director. He had left the FA for Brighton in 2019 before moving to Newcastle three years later.His remit after returning last May in the newly created role of chief football officer to work alongside the technical director, John McDermott, was to oversee the regeneration of the National Football Centre as well as “building the long-term systems that underpin the FA’s performance ambitions”. In other words, find a way of playing without fear when it really comes to the crunch.“We felt them going backwards and backwards rather than going forward,” said the Argentina goalkeeper, Emiliano Martínez. “Sometimes when you are winning, you have to go forward anyway. You can’t change the gameplan.”While the academy system in England has become the envy of most countries given the resources at the disposal of Premier League clubs, it has still not found a way of producing technically gifted players who are capable of running games from midfield. But there have been signs that things may be starting to change.Elliot Anderson has emerged as an England first-choice over the past 12 months and Manchester City’s £116m summer signing is at the forefront of a new generation of midfielders who look capable of mixing it with the best at the European Championship in two years’ time on home soil.Manchester United supporters are still scratching their heads over Kobbie Mainoo’s lack of game time given his skill set was a key factor in their revival under Michael Carrick in the second half of last season. Mainoo’s inclusion alongside Jordan Henderson as the back-ups to Anderson and Declan Rice meant there was no place in the squad for either Bournemouth’s Alex Scott or Myles Lewis-Skelly of Arsenal.It could be argued that they were the two in-form midfielders in the country during the final month of the Premier League season, with Scott – who formed a winning partnership with Anderson at last summer’s European Under-21 Championship – standing out in Bournemouth’s win over Arsenal and draw with Manchester City that ended up defining the title race.Lewis-Skelly’s chances of being selected for the World Cup seemed remote when he lost his place as England’s first-choice left-back. Yet after returning as an all-action midfielder who kept Spain’s Martín Zubimendi out of the Arsenal team for the title run-in and excelled against Paris Saint‑Germain midfield in the Champions League final, the 19-year-old could have provided exactly what Tuchel described as a “natural self‑confidence to always want the ball”.Both look destined to play important roles for England, although whether that is the case with Mainoo or Adam Wharton will be intriguing to see.Like Anderson, Scott and Angel Gomes – the former United playmaker who was handed a shock call-up by Lee Carsley in 2024 – Wharton began his career as a No 10 before shifting to a deeper role. Tuchel does not seem to trust the Crystal Palace midfielder but he has the passing range and ability to unlock defences, not to mention a confidence and swagger on the ball that can’t be taught.As Ashworth and co contemplate another round of soul-searching, the answers to England’s prayers may already be here.