Sublime stint at Bayern Munich has made home audiences appreciate a man who isn’t flash or twinkly but is his country’s best footballer
E
veryone has their favourite mental comfort food, the stuff that makes you feel good in troubled times. Maybe you like baking bread and listening to history podcasts about Nazi atrocities. Maybe it’s watching Notting Hill in a Hugh Grant mask.
Perhaps you love to unwind by sitting in your walnut-panelled library and reading Catullus, naked, covered in Doritos crumbs, with a plastic bag over your head. Or enjoy nothing better than doomscrolling in a state of late-night brain-death, before accidentally subscribing to a mystery supplement that will rid you of all the horrific writhing parasites inside your body, because the advert had a really convincing animated graphic that made you hate yourself.
Obviously, I wouldn’t do any of these things. We’re talking about you here. But there are some deeply comforting sport things out there for these moments. Mid-90s Champions League highlights. Cricket clips featuring Shane Warne in iconic white bell-bottoms. And an understated treat: interviews when Harry Kane talks about real-life events as though they are in fact a football match.
