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Each edition includes an in-depth explainer on one of the biggest tactical talking points of the week, as well as a few excerpts from other curiosities I’ve seen in recent matches. There’s also a Q&A section – your chance to reflect on whatever nonsense has been going on lately.
This will read like a brilliant autobiography, but the first time I got paid to write about football, I wrote a 1,500-word essay on why Harry Kane didn’t deserve to be selected in the England team. I am so old.
Now, as a beginner, this may be doing for my reputation what Lily Allen’s new album is doing for David Harbour’s Hinge – but it’s important context to show that I’m ridiculously serious about the point I’m making here. Phil Foden does not deserve to be in the England team.
Not because of his talent, or his form, or that I have some bizarre personal ax to grind with him stemming from a misunderstanding over seating arrangements at a Boots launch event in 2023. It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t mark the reserved area adequately, and if anything, he was overly understanding of how ‘difficult’ the free bar made me.
Anyway – sorry – my point: none is capable To play for their national team, and that’s the hill I’ve chosen to die on for a long time.
you may have seen squad announcement At this point, further news that Foden’s time in the international jungle will come to an end with these dead rubbers against Serbia and Albania. The two big changes to the previous team are Morgan Gibbs-White, who was great, and Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who was there, to make way for him and Bellingham.
It’s hard to argue against such a swap – and indeed almost impossible after Man City beat Dortmund this week. Foden, give him his due, was sensational in that game, and he scored the two goals described by Pep Guardiola as – and I am defining – these as trademark moments.
But the thing is, those exact moments clearly illustrate why he has been flying for Man City this season, but he has only one goal and one assist in his last 24 England appearances. That’s just one goal and one assist more than I’ve scored for England in the last three years, and I’ve declared my eligibility for Scotland a long time ago.
For the opening goal, Foden expertly found space between the lines and turned the ball neatly onto him as soon as it was thrown towards him. He took a few steps to get into optimal shooting position and sent a worm-burner curling into the far corner. It’s the kind of goal that only the best players score – and only the very, very best players score regularly. But look at Holland.
As the move develops, he stands in the exact spot from which Foden will eventually fire. But as soon as he gets the ball, he moves towards goal, draws defenders away and creates space to create chances.
This is also not a one-time thing. If you only watched the goals, you might have missed Dortmund’s early warning – the first real chance of note came from here Absolutely Same pattern.
Foden gets the ball between the lines, Haaland drives across goal to free up space and Foden gets into it to get his shot away. To quote that Rio Ferdinand meme: That’s what he does.
I know we’ve all tried very hard with therapy or “just drinking” to try to forget the Euros last summer, but the kind of situation Foden thrives in doesn’t exist for him in an England shirt. near-space Jam To a level where many of the country’s best players lost all their power, they were made to watch – but this came down heavily to the clash of profiles.
Phil Foden, Jude Bellingham, Cole Palmer – England’s embarrassment of riches in 10th place – all at odds with the man who remains their most important asset at this level: Harry Kane. He is not making the driving runs we see from Erling Haaland; Under difficult circumstances, he has made a career by running in the exact opposite direction. He gifts space to those around him Back Defenders have to go inside and score, not space. Front Of them.
England scored two really great team goals in that entire tournament, and both were a direct result of bringing Ollie Watkins on in his place. Against the Netherlands, he made a defence-wide run in behind, and Palmer – working into the space he had left – found a brilliant pass. Against Spain, he made the same run again, leaving space on the edge of the box for Bellingham and Palmer to equalise.
This is what it looks like when profiles complement each other.
Watkins pushed the Spanish defense back towards his goal, creating a small highlighted pocket that showed where Bellingham was going to go – and, ultimately, where Palmer would score.
The other benefit of those activities is that your 10 actually have something to hit when they manage to get themselves on the ball. Two of England’s best moments of the entire tournament came as a direct result of replacing their best player. Weird old game.
Now, make fun of me for a second, okay: the multiverse. A theory that proposes that our universe is one of an infinite number of realities in which everything that can possibly happen does and will happen. Let’s assume for a second what’s actually happening – there will be a huge number of them including Erling Haaland liking being born in Leeds so much that he decided to represent England instead of Norway.
In 2007, upon the expiry of his Manchester City contract, Alfie did not move the family back to Bryn. Maybe Roy Keane’s eight-footed receipt for those alleged sleights of hand actually cured existing problems in his knee or something. He may have gone to Oldham or Stockport instead. Anyhow, Erling grew up doing his paper rounds in Spinningfields and has three different Oasis-branded bucket hats.
In those realities, I could not have lobbied more loudly for Phil Foden’s inclusion in the England team – if indeed he and I both still exist and do the same job. Infinite universes mean there’s at least one where he’s writing a newspaper saying I’m too old now to keep James Trafford out of the team.
Thomas Tuchel’s biggest decision upon taking this job was about Harry Kane’s future, and he has quite emphatically opted to stick with him. Even a cursory glance at what’s been happening in Munich this season tells you that it was all done without thinking. Surrounded by players who clearly lick their lips at the prospect of running ahead of him in those positions, Bayern has won every one of the 16 games they have played this season. Kane is personally sitting on 22 goals ahead of Bonfire Night – more on his own than every single team in the Premier League.
and yet. and yet. This does not mean that he is “eligible” to play for England. International caps are not small certificates given for good performance. This means that a manager should feel very comfortable building a team based on how he works as a centre-forward – even if it is at the expense of his generationally talented colleagues.
Morgan Rodgers hasn’t broken any trees at Villa Park this season, but when he has started behind Kane in recent matches he has looked like a Bayern player in every way except the lederhosen. Foden, throughout almost his entire England career, has looked to do the exact opposite of what the man in front of him is trying to do. The England manager has precious few games left to find a role that suits him and if he can’t find one, it won’t matter how “deserving” he is of going to the World Cup.
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