Flags of our Fathers – Gearing up for the World Cup takes little motivation. It just needs a little ignition, and the euphoric optimism of drunken people with flags and plastic hats will do the rest. Last night’s warm up/send off friendly with Mexico was all about getting the Wembley crowd to forget the domestic season just gone, and fully engaged, ready and patriotized for the festival du foot that awaits us in South Africa. The powers that be had ladled it on thick with a record breaking attempt to make an all encompassing St George’s flag out of men in (thankfully large) T-shirts, and as Baddiel & Skinner’s anthemic No.1 blared through the PA system, and the faithful struggled to remember which version this was, or any of the words that weren’t the chorus, it was hard not to get caught up in it all. There was even a spontaneous ovation for some soldiers who’d arrived late to their seats and should anyone have forgotten how great a chance we stand this summer, they needn’t have looked further than the back of the person in front of them, as the shirts themselves reminded us of our brave boy’s glorious achievements en route against the mighty warriors of Andorra, Kazakhstan and Belarus. Why if that didn’t inspire us all to believe then what would? …No seriously. What would?
Same as it ever was – Not the football. Because in a fitting way, the night prophetically encapsulated the most overwhelmingly likely experience of World Cup ’10 for us English, and indeed the shared experience of all England fans at international tournaments for as many years as can be helpfully suffixed by the words “..of hurt” in the seemingly never-ending re-released versions of Three Lions. Essentially, one long optimistic carnival of red and white, inflatable balls and Mexican waves, unavoidably let down by England’s inability to cobble together any type of interesting football. For the first 45 minutes Mexico ran rings round us. Pretty useless rings as it turned out, but pretty rings nonetheless.
You spin me right round – The odd central midfield pairing of James Milner (bafflingly positioned centrally whilst Stevie G struggled to be either interested or interesting out wide) and Michael Carrick (struggling to remember even himself why he’s still in the national set up) were overrun by some tricky little Mexican fellas. As almost every Tom, Dick and Deano who called into Five Live and Talksport pointed out, if this had been Spain, we would’ve been annihilated before the first Mexican wave had even caught on. (Which, incidentally, was about 2 minutes in…We were playing Mexico after all.)
