Jonathan Liew's Blog, page 105
October 8, 2020
England's No 9 cloud lifts as night of experiments yields promising results | Jonathan Liew
Dominic Calvert-Lewin emerged as an alternative to – or foil for – Harry Kane in England’s 3-0 friendly victory over Wales
Yes, it was only a throwaway friendly at an empty Wembley Stadium between a second-string England and a limited Wales, but … well, maybe there is no “but”. Maybe that’s the end of the sentence. Not every football game has to mean something. Not every event has to be a learning opportunity. And as England scratched their way to a convincing if inoffensive win, the temptation was to wonder whether this lukewarm encounter had changed anything at all. Whether the fabric of the universe had been wrinkled one iota.
Still, if there’s anything more tiresome than an England friendly it’s people moaning about how tiresome England friendlies are, presumably while setting aside their entire evening to watch them. And even if you accept the essentially ephemeral, cobbled-together, Conor-Coady-as-captain feel to this contest, there was still plenty here to catch the eye. Jack Grealish was a swirling, silvery delight. Danny Ings’s overhead kick was fitting reward for a bustling night’s work. And Coady’s first England goal – capped by a celebration of pure, unbridled disbelief – was a genuinely touching moment.
Related: Calvert-Lewin scores on fine England debut to set up victory over Wales
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October 7, 2020
Gareth Southgate needs to find solutions for unbalanced England side | Jonathan Liew
The England manager has picked an inexperienced 30-man squad for the international triple-header. What will he learn?
In football, as in life, timing is everything. It is certainly no fault of Gareth Southgate’s that his England side must now take centre stage with last weekend’s riotously entertaining Premier League still fresh in the memory. Hurrah for international triple-header week, said no one ever; and yet the stakes for these three fixtures at a deserted Wembley – a friendly against Wales on Thursday, followed by Nations League games against Belgium on Sunday and Denmark on Wednesday – are considerable. Not simply for this emerging, amorphous England team, but for Southgate himself.
Related: 'A moral maze': Gareth Southgate tells young England players the party is over
Related: Dominic Calvert-Lewin: 'At 20 I wasn't ready but I never stopped believing' | David Hytner
Related: Ukraine include 45-year-old retired goalkeeper in squad amid Covid crisis
Continue reading...October 5, 2020
Silly season: when is football's goal-fest going to settle down a bit? | Jonathan Liew
What does this all mean for a sport that has sought to tread a fine tightrope between the credible and the incredible?
Somewhere between the fifth and sixth Aston Villa goals on Sunday night, it began to feel as if everything was just getting … a little loose. A little silly. As if the writing team on the new season of “Football!” had gone wild on the macchiatos and were now throwing in plot twists for the hell of it. Like the preposterous final segment of Casino Royale in which, for no apparent reason, Bond goes to Venice and spends half an hour blowing up an entire building. We swallowed Leicester getting trounced by West Ham. We were just about OK with Spurs winning 6-1 at Old Trafford. But this felt … excessive.
Related: Andy Robertson calls Liverpool's defeat 'embarrassing' and 'not acceptable'
Continue reading...October 3, 2020
Anarchic spectacle leaves Bielsa's and Guardiola's heads spinning | Jonathan Liew
A pulsating match between Leeds and Manchester City often defied analysis, evolving and mutating at great speed
There would be plenty of time for handshakes and benedictions. What Marcelo Bielsa wanted to do above all, as the full-time whistle blew at Elland Road, was think. He wanted to process what he had just seen, and how he felt about it. As he sank to a crouch and bowed his head, the raindrops studded his jacket like diamonds.
Was this ultimate order or ultimate chaos? On a night of greasy, lawless entertainment, the temptation was to err towards the latter. Bielsa and Pep Guardiola are frequently described as coaches whose teams like to dominate. Here, every fresh attempt to do so seemed to bury the game in fresh lashings of anarchy, from skittish start to frenetic finish. Guardiola admitted he needed “time to process” the game. Bielsa declared there were “no tactical aspects which were significant”.
Related: Rodrigo's first Leeds goal earns fighting draw against Manchester City
Continue reading...A mural in time: imagining Shane Warne's ultimate party | Jonathan Liew
What if the widely ridiculed artwork featuring a host of the former cricketer’s favourite public figures was not merely a figment of his imagination?
By Jonathan Liew for The Nightwatchman
The film crew had been through almost every room of the house, and were just about to leave when the producer spotted the mural. At first, she thought nothing of it. Shane Warne’s house in the Melbourne suburbs was like a shrine to bad art. The motivational posters featuring tropical sunsets and soaring eagles. The Matisse rip-offs that looked like a child’s school macaroni project. The Barack Obama “Hope” poster, but with Merv Hughes in the main role. This, however, was on an entirely different scale.
The cameras started rolling. “I’ll run you through a couple of the names,” Warne said. “So there’s Bruce Springsteen and myself just chilling in the corner, having a drink. Springsteen’s got a cricket ball in his hand, he’s just asking questions about cricket. The legend Mick Jagger, he’s just sitting in the pool chilling. Then you’ve got Frank Sinatra and Muhammad Ali having a bit of a tune, just singing along. Then JFK’s just mixing with Sharon Stone and Marilyn Monroe. Two of my closest friends, Chris Martin and Michael Clarke, just having a bit of a chat. I tell you what, the artist has looked after Pup with those guns!”
Related: Shane Warne's mural brings the art and cricket worlds together as one | Russell Jackson
Related: Sign up to the Spin – our weekly cricket round-up
Related: Shane Warne's $1m baggy green finds permanent home next to Bradman
Related: Shane Warne bongs created by Australian designer in honour of 420 day
This article was originally published in the Australia special edition of The Nightwatchman, a collection of brilliant long-form writing about Australian cricket. Click here to download your copy for just £4.50 (around $8.00) when you use coupon AG10 at the checkout.
Continue reading...October 2, 2020
Bielsa, Guardiola and a meeting that may have changed football history | Jonathan Liew
Two of the game’s true believers lock horns again when Leeds host Manchester City and history suggests a treat is in store
The San Mamés heaved and the heavens opened. The players of Athletic Bilbao and Barcelona dragged themselves from the field, their bodies soaked in rain and sweat. It finished 2-2, Lionel Messi poaching an equaliser in injury time: for Athletic a triumph cruelly snatched away; for Barcelona two precious points dropped in the title race. And yet this was a time not to mourn, but to rejoice.
Related: Leeds v Manchester City: match preview
Related: Will Rúben Dias be the defensive rock to transform Manchester City?
Related: Manchester City's Sam Mewis sinks Arsenal in Women's FA Cup semi-final
Related: Champions League 2020-21: group stage analysis and predictions
Continue reading...October 1, 2020
Calvert-Lewin on fire and fake crowds leaving games early – Football Weekly
Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Paul Doyle and Jonathan Liew. They discuss the recent Carabao Cup action, including another hat-trick for Dominic Calvert-Lewin, José Mourinho chasing Eric Dier down the tunnel, Paul Doyle’s unusual recipe for improving the League Cup, Jonathan Liew on the Borussia Dortmund model and fake crowds leaving games early
Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Paul Doyle and Jonathan Liew. They discuss the recent Carabao Cup action, including another hat-trick for Dominic Calvert-Lewin, José Mourinho chasing Eric Dier down the tunnel, Paul Doyle’s unusual recipe for improving the League Cup, Jonathan Liew on the Borussia Dortmund model and fake crowds leaving games early
Continue reading...September 30, 2020
Borussia Dortmund: where dreams are made or a glorified feeder club? | Jonathan Liew
The Bundesliga side’s recruitment policy is held up as a model – but they have won only one trophy since 2012
The chase begins frighteningly early. Often years in advance and usually when the object is still a child. Jude Bellingham and Gio Reyna were scouted at 14. Erling Braut Haaland first appeared on the radar in 2016, more than three years before he signed. Age-group games are surreptitiously attended. Targets are identified with surgical precision. Next: the charm offensive.
Introductions are made. Interest is subtly registered with parents and agent. Replica kits and club merchandise start arriving in the post. The prospective player is invited to Germany to watch a game in front of the heaving, haunting roar of the Yellow Wall (pandemic permitting). No gaudy blandishments; no super-yachts; no suitcases full of cash. As the sporting director, Michael Zorc, likes to put it, Borussia Dortmund don’t need to make grand promises to their teenage hopefuls. They just point to the team sheet.
Continue reading...September 29, 2020
Deadly Dychonomics: Premier League clubs won't care if EFL teams go under | Jonathan Liew
Why would English football’s elite worry about propping up a system they have spent years actively seeking to obliterate?
One by one, they lined up to condemn the madness. “It’s certainly destroying my enjoyment of the game of football,” said Roy Hodgson. “You’re ruining football for everybody,” fumed Jamie Carragher. “The game’s gone,” tweeted Andros Townsend. “Maybe we can all get together and stop it,” urged Steve Bruce.
Meanwhile, on Monday a group of football fans, former players, administrators and politicians sent an open letter to the government warning that many EFL and National League clubs were “unable to meet their payroll obligations for next month”, and that without government assistance English football was facing “the collapse of the league structure that we have known for over one hundred years”.
Related: Premier League urged to 'step up' and support struggling EFL clubs
Here we are: raging at handball decisions while an entire way of life goes to the wall
Related: Macclesfield Town's demise was signposted but that doesn't make it less painful | John Brewin
Continue reading...September 26, 2020
Hodgson blames 'nonsense' rule as Everton penalty sinks Crystal Palace
Briefly and improbably, Everton are top of the Premier League. They got there not by clerical error or through a sudden and unexplained vaporisation of all the teams beginning with letters from A to D, but by winning their third game in a row: a greasy, hard-fought, relentlessly entertaining arm wrestle at a drenched and freezing Selhurst Park.
They were the better team, the more ambitious team, the more attractive team, and yet they still largely owed their win to the butterfly wings of VAR: Richarlison’s first-half penalty being awarded for a painfully harsh handball against Joel Ward.
Related: Crystal Palace 1-2 Everton, Football League and more – live!
Related: Manchester United beat Brighton with last-gasp Bruno Fernandes penalty
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