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Following the murine pitch invasion in which a rat halted Tuesday’s match between Wales and Belgium, Football Daily rather hoped a like-minded, attention-seeking bear, elk or wild boar might inject some much-needed jeopardy into England’s methodical 5-0 rout of Latvia by emerging from the long row of trees at the side of Riga’s Daugova Stadium and wandering on to the field of play. Sadly, there were no such comedy wildlife incursions, so as England piled the hurt (and goals) on their hosts, their travelling fans chose instead to amuse themselves by relentlessly ribbing Thomas Tuchel, who had been extremely critical of the library-level silence during England’s dismantling of Wales at Wembley. “I got a bit of stick and I found it quite creative,” parped Tuchel, having spent the evening being serenaded by fans insisting they would sing when they want, among other pertinent ditties containing effing and jeffing that has no place in a family football email. “It made me smile. It’s British humour and I can take it. No harm done.”
While you wouldn’t think there had been no harm done going by some of the pearl-clutching and pulpit-thumping which greeted this fan mockery in a few write-ups of the match, such has been the ease with which England have qualified for the Geopolitics World Cup that it is no surprise selected commentators felt compelled to confect outrage and hysteria out of nowt rather than just focus on a job being well done, albeit against extremely limited opposition. While the good news is that England have qualified with two games to spare, having won six out of six without conceding a goal in Group K, there’s no getting away from the fact that they have done so against three nations and a ski resort with a combined world ranking of 411. An undeniably promising side whose sole defeat under Tuchel came in the only match they’ve played against reasonably fancied opposition in Senegal, we don’t yet know how good this work in process could be. Worryingly, their next matches of any major importance could be played in conditions so hot that the incessant parping of that effing brass band will be drowned out by the sound of Anthony Gordon’s skin crackling in the early afternoon sun.
