Key events15 Jul 2026ITV to broadcast World Cup final half-time show in full15 Jul 2026Half-time of final to last 30 minutes – reports15 Jul 2026PreambleAnyhow, that’s it from this blog for today. But fear not! For anyone at a loose end, we’ve this little thing to distract you, should you fancy. Otherwise, until tomorrow, peace out.“I can’t make the technical argument for Madueke’s inclusion over others,” begins Pete Mumola, “but Tuchel has been effusive about him in interviews over the months. There are just some players a manager likes for tactics, shape, flexibility or what have you, and I think he’s squarely slotted into something Tuchel ‘needs’ ahead of the rest.”Yup, I agree, and I’m not saying he’s a bad player, but he’s not even a regular in a club side which struggles to penetrated in open play. I bet, if you asked them, England’s opponents are very happy facing him relative to who they might’ve faced.“i think the problem with England’s midfield trio of Rice, Bellingham, and Anderson isn’t that they’re not balanced,” says David Wall. “All of them can carry the ball, pass pretty well, and aren’t afraid of making a challenge. And as Bellingham in particular has shown in the past couple of matches, he’s pretty good at wriggling out of tight spaces with the ball, and at arriving in the box at opportune moments. I think the problem has been that Rice is clearly not fit. I don’t think he has been all tournament and that has just escalated since the first game through a combination of the nerve and back problems he carried into the tournament, along with choosing the fish for his in-flight meal on the journey from Mexico to Kansas City. I agree that Mainoo should be first replacement for any of them, but that’s not because he’s got anything that the others don’t have. Rather it’s because he might be fit enough to actually show it compared with Rice in particular (and i write that as a big fan of Mainoo).”I disagree on Mainoo – he’s a wizard at beating men in tight spaces, which was exactly what England were missing against Ghana and arguably against Norway, especially in the first half. It needn’t be him, except the nature of the squad picked means no one but him can do that and, for what it’s worth, the lack of midfield balance is something I posited as a problem before Rice was injured or ill.And a little more.The problem Rashford and United have is there are only a few clubs in the world he’d happily play for and no sign any of them want him or his wages. It also seems unlikely that £30m would be enough to get Summerville.In non-World Cup news:“None of these players are wingers and the same profile of player as Madueke and Saka,” says an anonymous correspondent regarding my suggestion that one of Foden, Palmer and Gibbs-White ought to have been preferred to the former. “I think Tuchel likes players who he can swap like-for-like within a match instead of having to rejig his tactics every time he makes a change.”I agree, the inference that if something goes wrong, it’s the players’ fault, not that of the system. Which to me makes no sense: sometimes, opponents are a good match-up, or work you out, and in a tournament you need variety.I wrote about this earlier today, so to save anyone interested the grief of seeking it, this is what I said:So about Tommy T, then. Many of us will have seen his interview after the Norway game and almost all of us will have heard about it: he bristled at a criticism of England’s mentality, groused about them playing poorly, and I have questions: