Jonathan Liew's Blog, page 56

When a plan comes together: Martin Ødegaard’s bumpy path to destiny

Childhood advantages gave him a head start, but obstacles still littered the road to captaining Arsenal and Norway

There was a football pitch in Drammen. But like most other outdoor pitches in that part of Norway it was made of hard gravel: built for durability rather than control or technique. So in 2005, Hans Erik Ødegaard and about a dozen other parents simply forked out £50,000 to build a state-of-the-art all-weather surface, just a few hundred yards from the lavish villa he shared with his family.

Money was not a problem. The Ødegaards ran a chain of high-street clothing stores, and Hans had been a professional footballer in his younger days. But he had even grander ambitions for his son Martin, who even at the age of six could shoot a football at 40mph and possessed an unusual and extravagant range of skills. He couldn’t have known it at the time, but the artificial grass that Hans was paying for may as well have been a red carpet, spiriting his son to the most exclusive enclosure of the professional game.

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Burn’s night, Bale’s farewell and a new Chelsea arrival – Football Weekly

Max Rushden, Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Liew and Lucy Ward on the first League Cup quarter-finals, plus Elis James bids farewell to Gareth Bale

Today: Manchester United book their place in the last four of the League Cup thanks to a 3-0 win over Charlton Athletic – but it’s not as easy at the scoreline suggests, with the League One side and their 9,000-plus fans having a night to remember at Old Trafford. Newcastle United also seal a spot in the semi-finals thanks to a 2-0 win over Leicester.

Elsewhere, Elis joins for reflections on the remarkable career of Gareth Bale as he hangs up his boots on a glittering career. Just how great has he been?

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Quietly quitting: Osaka’s unapologetic hiatus is a small act of rebellion | Jonathan Liew

The former Australian Open champion is not competing in Melbourne this year, having rejected the grind of the tour

A long time ago, I took a part-time job in a high-street clothing store. It was late November, and amid the chaos of the Christmas rush I quickly discovered that nobody had the faintest idea what I was meant to be doing or whether I was actually doing it. One morning I overslept and queasily awaited the shrill phone call from a supervisor. It never came. The day passed.

More days passed. Days turned into weeks. The payslips continued to hit the doormat. If there was any faint paroxysm of guilt or shame at taking this multinational giant for £5.15 an hour while watching movies and eating toast in my pyjamas, then let’s say it passed. In early February, the cheques finally stopped. No words were ever exchanged between us. I haven’t set foot in the shop for almost 20 years.

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Joy of the playground defined Gareth Bale more than records or trophies

Wales forward retires with a glittering CV but it was his breathtaking style which truly set him apart from the rest

For Gareth Bale, the pitch and the playground may as well have been the same thing. Watch back some of his greatest goals and you can almost glimpse the school tie flapping behind him as he runs, a battered sponge ball sticking to his feet, the cautious teacher carrying a tray of orange squash across the penalty area.

Of course Bale always played to win. But in the 30-yard screamers and lightning bursts of speed, you can spot something else there too: a young man playing for the sake of playing, for the thrill of solving a new problem, playing to feel. What was the point in running unless you were going to do it as jaw-droppingly fast as possible? What was the point in taking a free-kick unless you were going to leather it into the top corner? And what was the point of being a footballer at all if you didn’t try these things?

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Kelechi Iheanacho strikes to edge flat Leicester past Gillingham in FA Cup

To slate-grey north Kent, and the latest rickety stop on the Leicester redemption tour. If Kent is the garden of England, then Gillingham is the unloved bit round the back of the garden shed, consisting of a pile of bricks, a broken child’s tricycle and several soaking cardboard boxes. For Brendan Rodgers’s ailing side, this felt like the perfect spot for an ambush.

In the event disaster was averted, but little else. Kelechi Iheanacho delivered the goods early in the second half, maintaining a remarkable scoring record in the FA Cup. This was his 16th goal, moving him 15th on the all-time competition list. And though there were few alarms for the 2021 winners as they saw out their slender lead, there was precious little to cheer them either: lots of pointless possession, a distinct lack of ideas and numerous abortive diagonal passes. A more confident opponent might have caused them real problems.

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World Cup 2022: Scaloni defends Argentina behaviour ahead of semi-final – as it happened

Lionel Scaloni showed support for his players, while two key France internationals missed their training session on Monday

That technical study group media briefing has started in Doha – on the panel are Jürgen Klinsmann, Pascal Zuberbuehler, Faryd Mondragon, Sunday Oliseh, Alberto Zaccheroni and Du-Ri Cha. I’ll bring you any significant quotes.

Do you know what this World Cup needs? A different ball. Well, that is at least what Fifa and Adidas think, as they have unveiled the Al Hilm, which will be the official match ball of the semi-finals and final. Kaka and Iker Casillas were pressed into duty to stand around with it at the launch in Doha.

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World Cup 2022: Semi-finals buildup and latest reaction to England’s exit – live

Latest news as England arrive home and semi-finalists prepareAnd you can email Martin with your thoughts

That technical study group media briefing has started in Doha – on the panel are Jürgen Klinsmann, Pascal Zuberbuehler, Faryd Mondragon, Sunday Oliseh, Alberto Zaccheroni and Du-Ri Cha. I’ll bring you any significant quotes.

Do you know what this World Cup needs? A different ball. Well, that is at least what Fifa and Adidas think, as they have unveiled the Al Hilm, which will be the official match ball of the semi-finals and final. Kaka and Iker Casillas were pressed into duty to stand around with it at the launch in Doha.

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England ticked the boxes but did they need to win this World Cup enough? | Jonathan Liew

No easy targets or effigies to burn, though questions remain about expectations and how to measure success and failure

This time, there would be no Andrea Pirlo masterclass. Thomas Müller and Mesut Özil did not cut England to ribbons. Nobody got a red card. No classic shootout malaise. There was not an Icelandic player in sight at Al Bayt Stadium on Saturday night, unless one of them had somehow managed to buy a ticket. No familiar second-half regression, no midfield collapse.

In short, there are no easy targets here, no effigies to burn. The common consensus, indeed, is that England played well. Which is nice. It’s lovely that England played well. England have been playing well for a few years now. And yet the result was the same that Roy Hodgson’s side achieved in 2012, the same as three Sven-Göran Eriksson sides, the same as Diego Maradona’s Argentina in 2010 and Germany in 1994. Which leads to a pointed and open-ended question: does any of the above really matter?

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France overcame England because champion teams win the big moments | Jonathan Liew

England were brave and rose to the occasion but France had no need to – when they had five good minutes, they scored

Midnight strikes and the party is over. England crumple to the turf in fragments: one here, a couple over there, one more over by the centre circle. The Al Bayt pitch is a field of broken dreams, of hope and despair, and hope again, and despair again. In the VVIP seats, David Beckham is holding his head in his hands, although for only one of the reasons he should be. Afterwards Gareth Southgate will talk about how close they came, how much these players can still achieve. England are proud. England are defiant. But England are done.

It is of no consolation here to point out that England tried their best, that they had most of the chances and most of the ball, that they came with a plan and largely executed it to the letter. Nor is it any consolation to rehash the usual platitudes about what a great bunch of lads these are. All the above is true. But in the furnace of knockout football all of this only gets you to the finish line. It does not dictate whether anyone gets there before you.

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England v France: a heavyweight contest to define the Southgate era

World Cup knockout games are devastatingly brutal in their finality but at least this showdown looks intriguingly poised

Darkness falls quickly in Qatar. The night steals in like a kidnapper, wrapping its shroud around the desert like a bag over the head. Sunsets barely last long enough to choose an Instagram filter. On Saturday evening, either England or France will also discover that in these parts, oblivion descends with a devastating brutality.

Come 10pm local time, what has gone before will cease to matter. To the loser, the ruthless and often scintillating football that brought them to this quarter-final will be of no consolation at all. One of Harry Kane or Kylian Mbappé is a fraud. One of Didier Deschamps or Gareth Southgate is a moron. One of Declan Rice or Aurélien Tchouaméni is about to be “painfully exposed at this level”. Either the Football Association needs to take a long hard look at its French counterpart, or vice versa. Two hours of football decides the lot. Sorry, that’s just the way it goes.

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