Espana Es Campeona Del Mundo

From kick-off, only delayed 6 minutes by the pre-match show, Spain started as they meant to go on.

They took control, just keeping the ball to themselves and trying to possession Argentina to death, but they started off doing so little going forward that Emiliano Martinez could have set up a tent in his goal and only have been in danger of it being disturbed once, pre hydration break, when a shot across the goal by Yamal got deflected into his legs.

Unai Simon was only called into action once himself, before the hydration break, when a messy set of midfield passes left the ball seemingly rolling into Messi’s path with no defenders between him and the net. Well none except Simon that is who had sallied a full 40-yards from his goal to hook the ball away.

The Spanish keeper was called to emergency action again just after the hydration break when sold short by a weak backpass on the edge of his box, but in fairness he did get there and launched the ball clear ahead of the lurking striker.

One thing that was missing from the first half of this Final was Argentina’s agricultural tackling, they clearly dislike their former colonisers a lot less than England, though they did pick up the first yellow of the match in the 41st minute as Lisandro Martinez was cautioned for a pullback to stop a Spain counterattack.

Spain finally started to provide some goal-mouth action with 7 minutes till half-time, Mikel Oyarzabal firing one down Emi Martinez’s throat from the centre of the D before Marc Cucurella cut in off the left and curled the ball wide of the far past with the keeper watching it all the way.

As for Lionel Messi, his first impact of note on the match came in first-half stoppage time when he won a free-kick deep in his own half.

As the teams made their way down the tunnel with the match goalless it was undeniably Spain that had been on top, but with just 2 shots on target to show for their 64% possession the question remained… would they be made to regret not making the most of their dominance of the ball?

Surely they couldn’t freeze Argentina out of their box for the whole 90 right and Messi out of touches in the attacking third too…

Half an hour after the end of the first half the second finally got underway with Argentina starting it a man different to the ones that entered the tunnel, Nicolas Paredes having been replaced by Leandro Paredes after Lisandro Martinez was withdrawn minutes before half time for Nicolas Otamendi.

Perhaps it had been Paredes that had been missing from the team to keep Argentina pleasantly placid at the start of the match as it only took him 6 minutes to go into the book for having a few shoves too many at Spain’s players for defending their teammate after he gave away a free-kick for a clip on Rodri in midfield.

This seemed to spark Spain into life on the attack as they finally credibly threatened to break the deadlock minutes later when only a last-ditch tackle saved the South Americans from conceding and sacred them into making a change at right-back, Nahuel Molina replacing Gonzalo Montiel.

That change bore no immediate fruit though as Spain continued to pour forwards and secured the first decently placed free-kick of the match, 23 yards out, only for Lamine Yamal to thunder it into the wall.

That was the last straw for Luis de la Fuente, as he finally dipped into his bench for a double substitution that saw Fabian Ruiz replaced by Pedri and a striker swap at the point of the attack, robbing Oyarzabal of the chance to win the world cup for his nation and handing that chance to Ferran Torres.

The game started to open up a little just before the final hydration break and with the game still at 0-0 Spanish nerves would surely have been jangling, Argentina do tend to finish games strongly as many of their opponents in this tournament have found out to their cost.

Both teams have great strength and both managers decided to make use of that fact in the shadow of the hydration break.

First up was Lionel Scaloni, who sent on Facundo Medina and Giuliano Simeone on for Christian Romero and Rodrigo De Paul.

La Fuente replied with a double sub of his own, Mikel Merino and Nico Williams sent on for Alex Baena and Dani Olmo.

Spain continued to dominate and even truly tested Martinez before the end of the regulation 90, a trick Argentina couldn’t pull off on Unai Simon, though Argentina were certainly better in the second 45 than the first.

The stoppage time was only 4 minutes, but that was far too long for Enzo Fernandez.

He made it a hat-trick of Argentinian players to receive a red card in a World Cup Final, half of all players to get one ever, and well earned second yellow too for a rash flying tackle on Pau Cabarsi that sent the Spaniard soaring into the air.

A foolish tackle to make in any game, but even more so when you know you’re already on a yellow for dissent in the biggest game in the world… he can have no complaints, not that this stopped him complaining.

Argentina’s players spent so long disputing this clear red card that the 4 minutes turned into 8 and with seconds remaining they gave away a free-kick just begging to be scored, central and just 20 yards out, only for Yamal to see his gorgeous swerver pushed round the post.

Bring on extra-time and now Argentina had very good reason to park the bus, just dig in and pray for penalties.

England had shown them it’s possible with their brilliant backs to the wall display in Mexico City, but now Argentina had to do it in the highest pressure game in World football.

It took a mere 2 minutes and 44 seconds for Spain to open up a crack in the silver wall, but Nico Williams deft flick on just 6 yards out was palmed round the post by Martinez, and 3 more minutes to get smash the ball home from another beautiful cross that Nico Williams drives home.

The Spanish celebrations were cut agonisingly short though as the ref ruled the goal out for a foul, that seemingly only he could see, on either Martinez or Otamendi as the ball flew across the box. Refs and Argentina? Every Spaniard will think so.

With that goal disallowed La Albiceleste made it to half-time in extra-time with the score still level and a job half done, so now just to do the same again. Penalties here we come?

Not so fast said Spain, as it took them just 42 seconds from the kick-off to score and not before time either.

Nico Williams turned provider for the eventual opener, nodding the ball down at the far post into the path of the onrushing Torres, who needed no second invitation to smash the ball home from close range and write his name into Spanish folklore.

He thought he had doubled his tally, and Spain’s lead, with 7 minutes of extra-time remaining as he broke free from 47 yards out and accelerated into the acres of space Argentina left behind them as they desperately chased the game only for his cultured finish to be ruled out for the most marginal of offsides, his left shoulder having leant offside.

Two minutes later Spain had another tremendous chance to double their tally, only for the link between Williams’ feet and his brain to disconnect at the crucial moment to send the ball rolling behind for a goal-kick when he intended to cross it.

Having been provided with so many let-offs over the course of extra-time it was obvious that Argentina would get at least one golden chance and as it turned out they got two in the final regulation minute of the 120.

First Simeone flashed the ball across the 6 yard-box only for a Spanish defender to slide in and steer it inches past the post, off the toes of the waiting Argentinian. That’s a brilliant bit of defensive work on the biggest stage, that can be taught to future generations and from the resulting corner Giuliano Simeone found himself in space on the edge of the box, but skied his teams best chance into Row Z.

Spain were by far the better team the entire match and deserved to be crowned champions of the world, but Argentina couldn’t accept that and let out the rage at full-time… so that’s where it had been hiding.

I won’t dwell on that though because Spain were more than worth the victory and had the ball in the net 3 times in Extra-Time, only 1 of them counted sure, but they proved they are the best team in World Football and added the second star to their shirt.


!!VIVA ESPANA!!

All Those Oh So Nears

With England we used to know what was coming, we used to be clear on what we should expect at any major tournament… a humiliating collapse.

This time round though it felt so different for so long, with this team finding ways to win every game whether they were playing well or not it seemed to many that this might finally be the time we ended the years of hurt.

I started to truly believe in this Three Lions team during our incredible backs to the wall win against Mexico at the Azteca. Playing more than half an hour with a man disadvantage against a team that hasn’t lost for 13 years in their home, and extremely partisan, stadium but still managing to get over the line is the kind of thing champions do.

In Thomas Tuchel I also felt we had found the coach with the will strong enough to make the hard choices we would need him to make to bring the trophy home again.

Yesterday he proved me wrong as England reverted to type.

Of course we started the match really well and for the first 55 minutes of the match we even did a truly magnificent job of nullifying the greatest footballer of the last 20 years, then we scored…

This was our fatal error, just like it was in 2018, as rather than seeing the lead as proof that the plan was working we decided that we no longer belonged on the pitch and shrunk into our shells like a cast of Hermit crabs under attack.

Our wins against Mexico and Norway were the work of pure mentality monsters, but that must have taken all of our mental reserves cause the final half hour against Argentina was the work of purely mental morons.

We dropped deeper and deeper, stopped trying to effect the game at all going forward and surrendered every blade of grass outside of our penalty area to Argentina, as evidenced by the 12% possession that we had in the remainder of the match after taking the lead. TWELVE PERCENT!!!

Surrendering in that manner is something we only seem to do on the football pitch, Luka Modric punished us for it in 2018 and this time we surrendered to Lionel Messi….

Messi ran the show for the final half an hour and as soon as we saw that happening we all knew what was coming next.

The equaliser felt as inevitable as Thanos from the moment we surrendered the pitch so when it came the only emotion I was capable of was resignation that we were going out and low and behold the winner came in stoppage time and it wasn’t for us.

Up until now I hadn’t truly understood ‘all those oh so nears, weigh you down through the years’ but having now seen England throw away two World Cup Semi-Finals leads in the space of 3 tournaments, with 2 European Final losses wedged in between them, I understand it now.

It’s not even the losses that weigh me down the most, it’s that in 3 of those 4 losses when the pressure is on we took the lead only to throw it away and the hope of leading finally feeling like this time could be to one only for England to ‘throw it away, gonna blow it away’ just like we always suspected they would.

I didn’t watch the Third Place Match in 2018, I looked up who we lost it too whilst writing this blog cause I’d blocked the damn thing out of my mind, and I probably won’t watch it this time either cause I know exactly what to expect from England in these matches…. we’re ‘gonna throw it away, gonna blow it away’ like we have the last 2 times we’ve played this match.

I hope we can change our MO one day, but at least for now its the same old England once again.

The Progress We’ve Made

Ten years ago England were dumped out of Euro 2016 by Iceland in the round of 16, having finished 2nd in the Group behind, of all teams, Wales… the only team we beat all tournament

This was off the back of finishing bottom of our group at the 2014 World Cup without winning a game, not an encouraging recent record for a new manager to come into, especially considering that we had only made it to the Quarter-Finals of a major tournament once in the last decade.

Little could any England fan guess that this national nadir was the spark that would lead to one of the longest sustained periods of tournament success in our nations history.

Gareth Southgate wasn’t the manager many fans would have naturally turned too after the Iceland humiliation, his domestic record as a manager being hardly sparkling, but it seems he was built for National Team management.

At his first tournament as manager he took us all the way to our first World Cup Semi-Final since Italia ’90, even destroying the biggest hoodoo dogging the psyche of every England fan by leading us to, of all things, a penalty shootout win…

A penalty shootout win just 2 years after the same team lost to Iceland turned so many of us from doubters into believers that the Semi-Final loss to Croatia felt soul-crushing, but given our recent history it’s incredible that we made it that far in the first place.

We kicked off our Euro 2020 having not made back to back Semi’s at major tournaments since making the Euro 1968 final four as reigning World Champions but we didn’t just make it to back to back Semi’s, we made it all the way to the final at Wembley.

This was our first major tournament final since 1966 and at Wembley too though the result of final day was not quite what we hoped for, how we lost to an Italy team that was in the middle of failing to qualify for 3 World Cups on the bounce I’ll never know but a final is a final.

We made it back to back European finals in 2024, for the first time ever, and in-between them we made it to the Quarter-final at the 2022 World Cup which was our worst tournament performance since that Iceland match.

Runs to a World Cup Quarter-Final, a World Cup Semi-Final and 2 European finals makes Gareth Southgate the most consistently successful manager in English history in terms of deep runs in tournaments, but that was also the problem…

So many deep runs had made us believe that a trophy was just round the corner heading into Euro 2024 and that made the defeat to Spain in 2024 the final nail in the golden coffin for Southgate, a victim of his own success.

That a loss in the Final was deemed a disappointment shows just how far we had come in 8 short years and now what we needed was a Man to get us over the line, so naturally we turned to a German.

Thomas Tuchel made his name as a manger in his home nation then had a brief stint with PSG before making his name known to us by taking Chelsea to back-to-back European finals and a Champions League title, now this proven winner turned his Midas touch to England.

Qualifying for this World Cup without conceding a single goal was impressive on it’s own, but what impressed me most before the tournament started was his ballsy squad picks. He didn’t go for the big names or the ‘best’ players, he went for the best possible team and to build a spirit within them that can’t be crushed like a tin can.

Starting this World Cup with a convincing 4-2 revenge job on Croatia sparked hope in all of us, never before had we seen England start a tournament with such confidence and command of the game.

Whilst the stalemate against Ghana brought some of the old fears flooding back to follow that up with a nail-biting victory over Panama to top the group filled me with belief that we were witnessing something we had never seen before from England.

Previous England teams had backbones of wet spaghetti when the pressure was on, but this team took that pressure and let it turn them into Diamonds…

DR. Congo sprang an early surprise on us in the round-of-32 but rather than shrinking into ourselves, as we would have done in previous tournaments, we came out swinging and got over the line thanks to Captain Harry Kane.

Then came the game that would have smashed previous England teams into smithereens arrived, Mexico in their Fortress Azteca.

They hadn’t lost in 13 years and with that history on their side previous England teams would have started the game already beaten, so obviously Tuchel’s tigers stood firm through the first half hour of gargantuan Mexican pressure before taking the lead through 2 goals in 98 seconds from Jude Bellingham.

At previous tournaments conceding just before half-time would have crippled England, despite that still leaving them leading 2-1 it would have broken them mentally and we would all have been waiting for Mexico to destroy us… but not anymore.

We not only increased our lead, having conceded, but we managed to do so having gone down to 10-men, against a partisan home crowd and a team that hadn’t been beaten in this stadium since before finished bottom of our World Cup group in 2014…

That isn’t the old England we used to know, it’s the new England we have become in the last decade of deep tournament runs…

Norway in the heat of Miami wasn’t the Quarter-final we would have chosen, but for the first time in many tournaments, everyone I spoke to about the game was expecting us to win and for the first time in a long time England lived up to expectations.

The next 2 matches might be the toughest we have faced all decade: first up are Messi’s reigning World Champions Argentina, then assuming we win that the chance for revenge beckons in the final.

Either we can avenge our Euro loss just 2 years later or avenge our Quarter-final loss 4-years ago, now wouldn’t that be something special just a decade after Iceland.

England started this decade off the back of the most embarrassing result since in 62 years and at the end of the decade they are two games away from ending 60 years of hurt, but the strangest thing about all of this isn’t the progress we have made along the way, it’s that many of us believe that the best is yet to come.

Das Deutsche Desaster 🥳

It's not often something really grabs my attention by filling me with unquenchable schadenfreude, but last night the miracle happened.

Germany, long seen as one of the most dependable teams in tournament football having won the World Cup 4 times and humiliating Brazil 7-1 in Belo Horizonte just 3 world cups ago, were dumped out of the tournament last night by minnows Paraguay.

La Albirroja by contrast have only qualified for the World Cup 8 times before this current tournament and half of those previous adventures were cut short in the Group Stage, with their only foray past the last-16 coming in their most recent appearance back in 2010.

This latest appearance for the Men from Asuncion did not start off especially well with the main hosts running out 4-1 winners in a match where Paraguay even started their opponents off with an own goal just 9 minutes in.

A slim 1-0 win against Türkiye and a 0-0 draw in their final group match against The Socceroos hardly did much to instill any confidence in their ability to rack up their second ever knockout stage win even before people realised they were up against the mighty Germans.

Germany's path to the knockouts was a smidgen smoother than their conquerors, but not much

Starting against minnows Curacao with their second 7-1 scoreline in recent memory would have filled many teams with fear, though others would say you can only beat what is in front of you...

They showed proper grit in their next game to come from behind and beat Ivory Coast 2-1 with a 94th minute winner, this was a team showing that they never know when they're beaten and that in Deniz Undav they had a mercurial talent that could finish any game for them.

Then they headed to New Jersey for their final group game against a misfiring Ecuador, that had been held to a 0-0 draw just 5 days beforehand by the same Curacao team Germany had blown away in their opener.

On paper there was only one winner, but this beautiful game of ours isn't played on paper....

On the grass Germany lost, 2-1 to a 77th minute winner courtesy of Gonzalo Jordy Plata Jiménez.

That win for Ecuador would have sent alarm bells ringing for the Germans and their hopes of making a deep run, especially as they were set up for a showdown with France or Sweden when they made it to the last 16.

For most of the world that really was a when and not any kind of if, after all it was only Paraguay.... but no-one told the Paraguayans that.

I had the match on in the background and only really tuned into it properly when Ensico fired Paraguay ahead on 42 minutes, when the sound of the fans celebrating grabbed me by the shirt collar.

That seemed to spark Germany into life and they equalised through Arsenal's Kai Havertz less than 10 minutes after the restart and had long periods of dominance throughout the second half.

They could not turn any of that dominance into another goal before the ref blew the whistle for full-time, but they had the ball in the net through Jonathan Tah's header from point blank range off the back of an excellent corner delivery.

It looked like a great goal just before half-time in Extra-Time of the kind that great tournament teams, like Germany, have in their arsenal to get them over the line when it really matters, but the VAR had other ideas...

Even on seeing the slo-mo replays of the corner and the goal I could see nothing that constituted the foul the refs could see, sure the goalkeeper had an attacker on him but if you rule the goal out for that you'd have to rule out 90% of the set piece goals scored in the Premier League last season, surely not?

Apparently so....

It was the softest foul I have seen in a long-time and one heck of a let off for Paraguay, but the South Americans would make excellent use of it.

They dug in resolutely for the rest of Extra-Time and secured the lottery of penalties, though this should have been scant reward as Germany practically own progression on penalties at major tournaments, this is their bread and butter.

Well it is normally, but then Havertz missed the first kick of the shoot-out and after 3 spot kicks each Germany knew they had to score to avoid putting Paraguay in a score and win situation, but Woltemade saw his penalty saved....

This left Paraguay with the advantage of knowing that, no matter what Germany did all they had to do was score with either of their next 2 and they would be through to the next round..... so of-course they fluffed their lines both times and took things into sudden death.

The taker of their 5th penalty was Fabian Balbuena, who had been brought on in the 122nd minute specifically for the shootout and when he missed I thought the dream was over

Jonathan Tah, scorer of the disallowed goal in Extra-Time stepped up to avenge that injustice only to sky his shot having sent the keeper the wrong way, he had done everything right only to prove incapable of keeping it down.

The saying '3 is a magic number' is famous in the UK and last night proved just how true that is for Paraguayans too.

Having trusted their first chance to win to a forward and the second to their penalty specialist they chose a centre-back to entrust the magical chance too and he made no mistake sending Manuel Neuer the wrong way and smashing the ball into the roof of the net to send his nation into rapturous extasy and the entire footballing world into a state of delirious shock.

On paper this match was a mismatch of epic proportions, but on grass it turned into a historical moment of monumental beauty.

Paraguay will never forget this result, Germany will never forget this national embarrassment and maybe Brazil will see it as their fellow South Americans helping them avenge their own 2014 humiliation at German hands.

However, for myself this match will forever be known as Das deutsche Desaster

The Best Team Possible

The One We Won and The One We Are Going To Win

There are many considerations that go into selecting a World Cup squad and for any manager looking to take a serious shot at winning it the bottom of that list, buried deep in the centre of the earth, should be the name recognition of the players with the general public, closely followed by the press opinion on who you ‘should’ have picked.

When Sir Alf Ramsey took over in the England dugout in 1962, having seen the team crash out of that year’s World Cup at the Quarter Final stage, he certainly didn’t set stock by others opinions. Instead he set about reshaping the whole England set-up to what he knew it needed to be to win England’s only current World Title just 4 years after his appointment.

The ability to go for what he knew was needed, despite all criticism thrown his way was the courage we needed to win and I think with this current squad selection Thomas Tuchel has shown the same iron-will.

Sure there are players that I personally I am surprised to see included whilst others are omitted and when I asked for my family’s opinion on our football group chat there were as many differing opinions on the squad as there were replies.

Everyone who sees this squad will have their opinion on it but perhaps we should all be happy it is not on our shoulders that the final decisions rest.

There were tough choices to be made throughout when cutting down a 55 man-preliminary squad to a final 26 with the whole world watching and judging your every choice. The toughest choices take the strongest of wills and there is no deny Tuchel has that.

As the squad is all over the internet I will not write the whole thing out again here, but the biggest calls have been to leave out Cole Palmer, Phil Foden and Harry Maguire. The latter of that set was hardly discreet in his disappointment, but perhaps that explains why he didn’t make it into the squad.

A tournament isn’t won by the best players if they do not gel as a team and Tuchel understands that truth more than most. He has Jude Bellingham ready to take on the number 10 role and he has been in better form than either Palmer or Foden.

Tuchel has stuck to his promise of picking players in form and rather than taking Foden and Palmer only for one to be a rotation player and the other a bench warmer at best he has given the spots to players he believe add more on field options, maybe even the ability to change tactics where needed.

Anthony Gordon and Kobbie Mainoo both give Tuchel different options to Bellingham, if the brilliance he offers is failing to break teams apart. It’s not a single tactic that will beat every team, but the ability to adapt to the tactics of the opponent and ask the questions that will unlock the most talented of defences.

Tuchel has set us up with a squad to do this, the spine of which is an experienced quartet of elder statesman with the wisdom to guide the younger squad members through the more difficult moments.

Jordan Pickford, 32, is the brick wall in goal with 82 caps to his name who has been there and done it before (including the penalty shootout win against Colombia in 2018) that will imbue the back line in front of him with the confidence to shut down any attack, even one as fluid as the raging Colorado River. There will be no Grand Canons forged through our defence with Pickford marshalling them, not even at corners.

John Stones, 32, has 87 caps and with years under the tutelage of Pep Guardiola at club level, competing for honours at the highest level, I doubt there is anything that any of the big names of rival countries squads (Messi, Mbappe etc.) can pull out of their lockers that Stones will be unable to deal with or help the rest of his defensive colleagues through.

Jordan Henderson, 35 turning 36 on the opening day of the tournament, has 89 caps to his name and whilst it is unlikely he will add to that number at this tournament just having his calming presence around the squad will do wonders for the rest of the players at the sharp end of things. Hendo has nearly 2 decades of experience in the game now and having learnt his trade from Steven Gerrard he could hardly have had a better teacher, as a player at any rate.

The final member of this wizened quarter is also our goalscoring talisman Harry Kane.

Sure Kane is now 32, but he has had Tuchel’s trust every since the manager was appointed and he has repaid it by adding more than goals to the arrows in his quiver. With 112 caps and a record 78 goals to his name he now has nothing more to prove to anyone and can simply go out and enjoy himself, with players set up around him to dovetail off his skills to the benefit of the team.

This quarter will be the spine of the team throughout the tournament and will guide the rest of the squad, with an average age of 26.57 years, through the trails that await them.

Our nations hopes to final break the curse that has stalked us for the past 6 decades will rest not on the best players perhaps, but on what Tuchel has assembled instead and that is the best team possible.

Emery’s The Unai One

Villa fans are on cloud nine as I write this having strolled to the Europa League title with a routine 3-0 humbling of Freiburg, not that the result was ever in doubt when you look at the record of the man sitting in their dugout.

Unai Eery is the mastermind of the Europa League and after this win he has made it a record 5 victorious final appearances with 3 different teams in just 11 and a half seasons, only 6 of which he was leading teams competing in the competition.

Having joined Sevilla in January 2013 he led them to 3 Europa League finals in a row and won every single one, first sneaking past Benfica on penalties in Turin before defending their title in Warsaw against Dnipropetrovsk and completing the trifecta in Basel against a new Jurgen Klopped Liverpool side.

This incredible hat-trick of consecutive Europa League wins earned Emery a move to PSG and the easy qualification to the Champions League that this offered. This move lasted 2 seasons before he left Paris to try and win something with Arsenal, in the era of them being almost as much of a banter club as Spurs are these days.

He managed to take an Arsenal team that had been on their asses for way too many seasons at that point all the way to the Europa League final in Baku, where he tasted defeat for the only time ever in a European final. Chelsea had their domestic rivals number and ran out 4-1 winners.

Emery doesn’t take losing lying down though and just 2 seasons later he was back in the final and taking his revenge on another English club, the unlucky victims being Ole’s Man United.

Back in Spain again Unai had taken over at Villarreal in the summer of 2020 and in his first season there he won them their first ever European title, leading them to an 11-10 penalty triumph over the sleeping giants from Old Trafford. Even in their diminished state there were very few people who backed Villarreal to secure victory over the European juggernauts, but they hadn’t counted on the Emery way… this is a man who understands the Europa League like he designed the competition himself.

The next season he took Villarreal all the way to the 2021-22 Champions League Semi-final, not bad for an underdog in La Liga.

Being able to win the Europa League with Spanish teams wasn’t enough for Emery though and perhaps he felt he had something to prove in the English game, after his less than stellar time at Arsenal, and he decided that Aston Villa were the team for him in October 2022.

He came in at a bad time for the club as Steven Gerrard’s time at the helm had seen them drop to 16th in the league table and just 2 points above the bottom 3, so Emery set to work.

Villa finished that season in 7th place and back into Europe for the first time since 1982, a mere 41 years previous.

Sure they lost in the Semi-finals of that Europa Conference League campaign but they did so to the eventual winners, an Olympiacos team fighting to earn their place in the final at their home ground. This blow was dented somewhat by qualification to the Champions League for the 2024-25 season.

However a loss in the Quarter-finals to an all conquering PSG team, that would go on to win the final 5-0, convinced Emery that having tried the other European competitions it was time to take Villa back into his competition in 2025-26.

Back in his comfort zone of the Europa League, which really should be renamed the Emery League, he helped them waltz to the final and even banished the ghost of his domestic failure in 2019 by leading Villa to Semi-final success over fellow English team Nottingham Forrest.

I was lucky enough to spend some time with a few Villa fans a couple of weekends ago and when I mentioned the Europa League final, their first European final since 1982, they were unanimous in their opinion…. we will win.

They knew who they had in the dugout and just what he is capable of in this competition and they were right.

This win makes it 5 Europa League Titles for Unai Emery and in the Champions League that’s enough for a team to get given the trophy for keeps, so it’s hardly a stretch to say it should work the same for coaches too across all European competitions.

Win it 5 times and you get to keep the trophy, so UEFA get too it and give Emery his trophy, he is the master of the Europa League.

God’s Toilet

My View Of The Match

So I’ve been promising to complete and publish this blog for long enough now and here we finally go. It’s more than 2 weeks on from the match itself now and it has taken this long to publish partly down to technical difficulties but also down to how little I wished to relive the experience.

Elland Road has never been a favoured stadium of mine, with my previous visits being dogged by both infuriating stewards and abysmal public transport links from the City centre to the stadium.

At least on this visit I was able to avoid starting my visit by swimming in the bowl of God’s Toilet as my new car allowed me to park on the edge of the bowl and climb down into Elland Road itself, though the climb out after the game was exhausting.

Before I get to the dross of the game itself though I want to make it clear that the nickname for the city did not come from me, instead it came from a Man from Hull that I met at a friend’s birthday party earlier in the day. We ended up speaking about our evening plans and when he heard I was going to Leeds he said ‘At least you’re going to God’s country and I spose even God needs a toilet’.

The match lived up to the environs it was played in as both teams tried to be worse than their opponents.

Long Throws Weren’t Working

The hosts were more intentional in their attempts to pass for wet spaghetti anytime a Brentford player got within 5 feet of them than they were with the majority of their attempts to get past the halfway line.

Faced with this morass of ‘attacking’ mediocrity, where Caoimhin could have pitched a tent on the centre circle and no-one would have noticed, Brentford were despicably defensive.

We were set up with a back 5 of; Kayode, Keano (who would have been much more use driving forward on the wings), Collins, Van Den Berg and Pinnock (who has barely played all season), which meant that on the rare occasion that Leeds did adventure forward they were met with a brick wall but that also meant Karl Darlow could have taken several short naps in Caoimhin’s tent.

Our lack of cutting edge wasn’t helped by Shade having an off day, Damsgaard being left out of the squad entirely and Dango starting on the bench to accommodate the redundant back 5.

A complete lack of invention in midfield from Hendo, Jenson and Yarmo left Brazil’s number 9 feeding on scraps up top and unable to create anything of note.

The most enjoyable thing across the whole 90 minutes was the chants being traded between us and the home fans, nothing on the pitch came close to topping its excitement.

Not A Bad Season, Just A Bad Match

By Halftime the game was crying out for fresh legs and a player on either team that could provide a little creativity or an inventive pass to crack the match wide open, but both managers were moving slower than treacle in the depths of winter to make those changes.

It took 23 minutes of the second half slowing rocking the supporters to sleep for either manager to make a move and it came through a double substitution for the hosts and when that wasn’t enough to inject momentum into the match they made a 3rd in the 83rd minute.

For his part Keith Andrews certainly had less options on a bench filled out with 5 youngsters, but he still had the speed and invention of Reiss Nelson, Romelle Donovan and Dango Ouattara to call upon… he only called on the latter of the trio.

It took till the 77th minute for Dango to be brought on and that he was a straight replacement for Shade, not instigating a change of formation to drive an attacking end to the match, was infuriating to the point where smoke would have been coming out of my ears if this was a cartoon.

Nelson and Donovan have the speed and ingenuity this match was crying out for, so that neither was used is maddening.

I understand that Brentford are having an incredible season and if you’d said to me in the summer that we would be going into the run-in looking at potential European qualification I’d have snapped you hand off, but goalless draws are not the way we should want to get there.

Yeah, that’s not the most positive note to end this blog on but I spose it could be worse, at least I’m not a home fan… once the match was over I got to leave the toilet.

The Quintessential Bore Draw

It’s Them Again!

I promise that I am getting on with writing about God’s Toilet, seriously I am!, but just as I was making progress with that blog and sorting out the technical difficulties I’ve been having with it well….

It’s them again…

Unless you have been living under a rock in 2026 you know exactly who they are so I’m going to do everyone a favour and not mention them by name yet again, it’s a dull name anyway.

Having covered up a decidedly disappointing 24-25 league season with a European trophy, they sacked the man who had won them that first trophy in almost 2 decades and replaced him with the best manager my team had ever had, prior to the Andrews Era (cue European Tour), to try and lift their injury ridden squad out of the lower reaches of the Premier League.

Anyone would have struggled against the utter lack of transfer strategy when they lost Son over the summer, 2 years after losing Kane, let alone them then losing their most creative midfielders to long-term injuries but it actually started really well till 2026 hit.

The club’s failure to replace the players that had been their talisman’s for a collective decade finally caught up with them in 2026 as they went 9 games without a single win before deciding that the only possible problem must be the manager and dispensing with his services.

They thought they could do better with his replacement and well that went well didn’t it

The man the club hierarchy turned too to pull them out of the relegation mire they’d slipped headfirst into was a man whose longest stint at a club was 2 seasons when at his hometown Hajduk Split in 2013-15.

As everyone guessed when he came in… it hasn’t worked out, with a squad that had looked to have turned a corner with back to back fighting performances against Liverpool and Atletico Madrid falling to pieces in their must win home showdown with Nottingham Forest.

That should have been the end of a 37 day experiment and in truth it probably was the moment the call to part ways was made, but the split was delayed a week whilst Tudor dealt with a family bereavement.

Giving Tudor a break to grieve his loss is the first good move the club’s hierarchy have made in far too long and my thoughts go out to him too.

Now that his tenure is over, a brief 44-day stint that makes Clough’s tenure at The Damned United feel like an eternity, the onus is back on those at the top to get this next call right.

A singular point in 5 league games was undeniably terrible, but if they get the next appointment that wrong then even the slim light of hope for safety will be extinguished.

To whoever comes next there’s only one thing to say… GOOD LUCK!!!

It’s The Hope That Kills You

So I did go to Brentford’s match on Saturday evening and I will get to writing about the game in God’s toilet, which is how a fellow Yorkshire Man described Leeds to me on Saturday afternoon but first, I said that I would be back to bask in some more Spurs schadenfreude once they lost to Nottingham Forrest and I’m a Man of my word…

Perhaps no-one told the Spurs’ board, owner or players that this weekend’s match was a relegation 6-pointer against their biggest competition at the bottom…. cause if you look at their last 3 games it doesn’t seem to have clicked with them that this was the one to bring their best too…

I’ll get to the actual ‘performance’ from the Forest game in a minute, but first a little context for the emotional whiplash that Spurs’ fans are dealing with right now.

The biggest week in the club’s history started so well last weekend with Spurs bouncing back from their Madrid mutilation to go to Anfield and fight like wolverines to wrestle a last minute equaliser out of last season’s champions.

To do so at a ground where they have historically struggled to collect any points, even in seasons where they weren’t otherwise atrocious, and where even their own fans were writing off their chances will have had those same fans believing that just maybe this was the turning point in their season.

If they could run the reigning champs close and snatch a 90th min equaliser against them, why couldn’t they burn through the Forest??

The flames of hope will have been fanned further in midweek when they shocked the entire football world by proving they actually can win at home!!! Not only that but they did so in the least Spursy fashion possible.

They took the lead on the half hour and held it till half-time… then reacted to being pegged back early in the second half by retaking the lead within 5 minutes… and to top it all off they didn’t collapse like a cheap tent in a thunderstorm they continued to fight and for the second time in 4 days they pulled out a 90th minute goal, this time a glorious home winner!!!!

A duet of 90th minute goals and incredibly positive results, a rare delicacy in this part of North London, would have had Spurs’ fans on cloud 9 and with genuine hope that the biggest game in their recent history could actually go their way.

The problem with such blind optimism is that often it doesn’t survive first contact with reality.

Their Dreams Will Fade And Die

So it proved on Sunday as a much changed team from their brilliant midweek revenge were burnt to a crisp by the marauding Forest in-front of a distraught and by the end dwindling home support.

The first half wasn’t too awful for the hosts and if they had made it to half time with parity maybe things would have been alright for the home support, but as soon as Igor Jesus scored in the final minute of the first half everyone knew what was coming next… time to go full Spursy!!!

In the second half all the fight they’d shown in the last week, that true Dunkirk spirit they need to get out of their position, deserted them and they just laid down and took the beating that was coming their way.

From hoping that they would be striding clear of the relegation zone to witnessing a performance so disgustingly inept that even Isthmian League teams, the 7th and 8th tier of the pyramid, could have done a better job must have been hellish for any fans who stayed to boo their team off at full-time.

Where their next win comes from is anyone’s guess, but the relegation that now feels inevitable wont hurt as much as Sunday did cause by the time it is confirmed the hope will have faded into the sunset and as any Spurs fan can confirm after this week “It’s The Hope That Kills You”

Home Nightmares

With life beating me down recently, and taking on most of my friends too, and with time on my hands today whilst I wait in for workmen to come and sort out a few things at my flat (not to mention the urgent need to have a distraction from the doom of job-searching) I’ve decided to get back to blogging.

Whilst I have been to a couple of Brentford matches recently neither experience has inspired me to blog, despite how well the season is going overall. That may sound ungrateful to my team for the tremendous season they’re having; 7th in the Premier League, 4 points and one place below the defending champions and very much in the race for Europe but it’s simply a results of the performances in those games and how they have interacted with my current body chemistry.

Would you be inspired by watching your team’s second string (mostly) sneak past a 6th tier team thanks to an own goal that was extremely unlucky for the home team? Would you be inspired by watching your team’s first choice players spend the second half of a match doing their best to throw away a match that looked on course to be a record victory for much of the first? Would being bailed out by two lengthy and exceedingly dull VAR reviews make the victory sweeter and relievable for anyone?

It didn’t work for me and so I didn’t blog about either of those victories. Instead I’ve turned to some much needed home comforts to raise my spirits whilst I wait for the workmen to do their jobs.

Sometimes when feeling down yourself there is no greater boost than seeing others struggle too, at least that way you can take solace in the fact you are not alone in struggling and where better to turn for this medicine of schadenfreude than the home nightmares of Dr. Tottenham, the most efficacious doctor in the history of The Beautiful Game.

Before I lay into Spurs too hard for the current state they’ve put themselves in I want to take a second to state how sorry I feel for their loyal fans, who have followed them all over the country this season willing them on, paying huge ticket prices, travel expenses and hotel costs for away games only to be served up this pile of dross.

Those fans worst nightmares have come at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Whilst most teams turn their home grounds into fortresses which other teams fear to visit Spurs have turned theirs into a point gifting machine for all visitors.

They have managed a paltry 2 wins on home turf all season, the first being an opening day win against newly promoted Burnley (who are nailed on for relegation) and the other coming on December 6th when Thomas Frank guided them to a 2-0 win over his old team.

That’s right Bees fans, we have the ‘distinction’ of being the last team Spurs beat at their North London home…

Before anyone at Spurs thinks they can laugh at us for that though I would request that they consider the following fact:
1. Due to their incredible FA Cup 3rd Round shock Macclesfield Town of the National League North, a phoenix club who have only existed for 6 years, have beaten more Premier League teams than you in 2026

Spurs league win came on 28th December 2025 at Selhurst Park, so I suppose they can take some solace from being just as good as a team from England’s 6th tier, though that solace may only go so far given the revenge Crystal Palace exacted upon them at the end of the first half on Thursday evening.

Not having been there myself I can’t tell you what was going through the minds of the Spurs’ players when Dominic Solanke poked home Archie Gray’s pinpoint cross in the 34th minute to give them the lead but my best guess is ‘AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!! What is happening?!?!’ and they dealt with the mental torment of leading at home by going full-on Spursy and going in at half-time 3-1 behind and down to 10-men.

I wish I could say that I was surprised by this turn of events but they didn’t get the nickname ‘Dr. Tottenham’ by being any good at doing things that are good for themselves, Doctors give gifts and in this case the gift was a deserved lead to one of their fellow bottom 3 in the form table.

Dr Tottenham are no better at completing comebacks when they equalise against a team that had taken the lead against them either. Palace’s win was the third of a hat-trick of home defeats starting with the 2-1 loss to Newcastle that lost Frank his job, where parity lasted for 4 whole minutes after their 64th minute equaliser.

Worse was to come for Dr. Tottenham a few days later under Igor Tudor where a 34th minute equaliser by Kolo Muani had them equal at half-time, only for their vicious North-London rivals Arsenal to rip them to shreds in the 2nd half and run out 4-1 winners for the second time this season…

The gulf in performance levels, standards and results between Spurs and their illustrious neighbours Arsenal is as painful for fans of the Lilywhites as it is hilarious for the rest of us. For the past few seasons Spurs fans have enjoyed teasing Arsenal fans for their propensity for finishing 2nd in the table, but I’m certain many of those fans would give up their houses, children and favourite childhood memories to be anywhere near second these days.

Before any Spurs fans say ‘well we were 17th last season, so what do you expect from us’ I would simply point to Manchester United, who finished 16th last season and yet currently sit 3rd in this season’s table and say “that”.

United were right down in the mire with Spurs at the end of last season, even losing the Europa League final to the proud Cockerels, but have turned things around this season and have won 4 of their 5 home games in 2026 (including a 2-0 defeats of Spurs and Man City).

If United can engineer such an incredible turn-around in their fortunes, whilst Spurs are odds on to be visiting Lincoln City next season then the problems go far beyond a bad season here or there and certainly far beyond the identity of the Man standing in the dugout week-in, week-out.

Spurs are a basket case of a team, but a great source of banter for supports of every other Premier League team. Next up on Spurs home nightmares playlist is a humongous relegation 6-pointer against fellow European explorers Nottingham Forrest, if they lose that match I struggle to see where their next win might come from.

That’s enough revelling in the doom and gloom of Tottenham’s current situation though, so I’d like to end this blog with 3 little rays of consolation for the long suffering Spurs fans.

1. I hear that Cardiff and Lincoln both have great stadiums, are really fun away days and both simple train journeys from North London, so you can drown your sorrows on the ride home.

2. You will still have multiple London derbies, to quench your thirst for rivalry games to let out your frustration on, against: Watford, QPR, Charlton Athletic and perhaps even Millwall (enjoy that away atmosphere).

3. You don’t even need to finish in the top 6 next season to qualify for the playoffs in the Championship next season as the EFL voted this week to expand the playoff path down to 8th place. Sure you’ll probably find a quintessentially Spursy way to finish 9th, but allow yourself to hope cause as we all know It’s The Hope That Kills You

That’s enough revelling in the pure, delicious and un-adulterated schadenfreude of Spurs’ home nightmares for now, as they take a week on the road themselves, but I might be back to enjoy it even more if (once) they lose to Forest.