Key events
Morning (BST)! Was there a football match last night? You’d never know it from the sea of crumpled tinnies, suspect splashes on the pavement and occasional lost soul in an England shirt, dazed and bleary-eyed, still wandering the streets on my commute in this morning.
Of course, there wasn’t just one match, but two, with Argentina beating Switzerland 3-1 after extra time to set up an epic semi-final against Thomas Tuchel’s brave boys. Let’s start with the reaction of Lionel Scaloni, Argentina’s head coach, who has been very keen to stress that it’s going to be a football match, as he aims for a rare double of a World Cup and a World Stating The Obvious award.
Jonathan Howcroft
That’s enough from me for now. It’s over to Will Magee to keep you updated for the next little while.
There will be plenty of coverage of the 1986 quarter-final in the coming days. Take every opportunity you can to enjoy Bryon Butler’s commentary of Diego Maradona’s solo goal that sealed England’s fate in the Azteca.
I’m sure IFAB mean well, but if they could put things back to how they were around 1998 and then all get in the bin, that would be terrific, cheers.
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England’s reward for downing Norway is… a semi-final date with Argentina. That’s right, England v Argentina in a World Cup knockout match in North America. What could possibly go wrong?
The defending champions have not been at their best in the knockout stages and they required the good fortune of a VAR intervention to send off Switzerland’s Breel Embolo and gift them the upper hand in the Kansas heat.
Fifa match officials’ novel use of the term “mistaken identity” reared its head again in sensational circumstances during Saturday’s World Cup quarter-final between Argentina and Switzerland, leaving Swiss forward Breel Embolo in tears and the European side a man down for a total of 67 minutes against the defending champions.
“It’s completely not understandable,” Switzerland head coach Murat Yakin said afterward. “I know that they will protect their referee but this rule destroyed the game today.”
Norway leave the World Cup with their heads held high. The last of the dark horses won over neutrals with their on-field demeanour and off-field Viking Row. It surely won’t be another 28 year wait between finals.
Unsurprisingly the heat and humidity of Miami took its toll on the Landslaget with even HyperbotGoalMachine3000 Erling Haaland needing to be substituted before the final whistle.
“To paraphrase Chico Marx to Mrs Teasdale in Duck Soup, who are you gonna believe? Me or your own eyes?”. Ronnie, I wish all my emails began like this.
“Given FIFA’s claim that the ball’s ‘heartbeat’ did not detect a deviation when the Norwegian keeper’s clearance had first hit the Spidercam’s wires, should Croatia be even more concerned about their late equaliser against Portugal being stamped out when we couldn’t see a deviation but the ‘heartbeat’ had picked up on a mere follicle? How can we trust FIFA technology?”
Indeed. Although I think the word technology at the end of that sentence might be redundant. Jonathan Wilson filed on this topic just hours ago.
Previously, the rant from the Egypt manager, Hossam Hassan, about the need to keep Messi in the tournament could have been dismissed as the bitter rambling of a disappointed man, but then you remember Fifa gerrymandered the qualifying process for the Club World Cup to ensure the presence of Inter Miami and Messi and that Fifa suspended two games of Cristiano Ronaldo’s three-game ban for his red card against Ireland in qualifying so he could play in every group-stage game (and then had to declare an amnesty for three other suspended players).
Fifa likes famous players to be involved. What if entertainment concerns, the grubby lust for growth, have come to supplant sporting concerns?
This is the fire with which Infantino is playing. Sport only means something when it is believable: football without faith is nothing. Marketing can never take priority over sporting concerns. When the perception of integrity has gone, the doubt lingers – as it did for Romanians around the turn of the millennium. And if the doubts linger too long, the sport is dead.
Sidebar, Whatever bears such a striking resemblance to Neil Innes’ I’m Free to be an Idiot that the former Monty Python collaborator received a songwriting credit and a share of the royalties in an out of court settlement.
Wonderwall might be the England team’s Oasis song of choice, but surely they change it up to this more apposite (and far better imo) number.
Gabriel Clarke was the reporter with the responsibility of getting postmatch quotes from Tuchel and Bellingham in the flash zone – and he did a remarkable job.
Tuchel became wide-eyed and animated liked Spud during his job interview in Trainspotting.
Bellingham, meanwhile, gave the impression he did not care much for any implied criticism from the German about the team’s performance.
… asked to respond to that criticism, Bellingham was clearly not impressed. “Yeah, well, whatever. Whatever,” he said, his body language also telling. “It’s difficult out there. It’s a tough shift. All the players have put in a tough shift, so my thoughts and appreciation goes to the players who were out there and put in a great shift yet again.”
Pressed further in another post-match interview, Bellingham said: “Maybe he doesn’t know what it’s like to play in those kind of conditions against Erling Haaland, [Martin] Ødegaard, [Antonio] Nusa, [Alexander] Sørloth. That’s not an easy team to play against. So, I think we’ve tried to create a positive environment. You’re not going to win every game, popping the ball and making a thousand passes. Sometimes you have to win dirty, and we’ve done that again tonight.”
“At the risk of being the 1,000th to say it – it’s the Cable of God,” jokes George Peacock.
Get those gags in now folks because there will be enough “of God” references over the coming days to last a lifetime.
Norway were aggrieved that England’s opening goal was allowed to stand after the ball appeared to strike a cable attached to one of the overhead TV cameras, allowing Elliot Anderson to accept possession unopposed and feed assist-maker Anthony Gordon.
“I can sit here and cry but I don’t want to do that,” remarked Ståle Solbakken. “We have done everything we could – the players have been phenomenal throughout the tournament. OK it was bizarre but it’s part of football and why it is the best sport in the world because things like that can happen. We have to accept it.”
Fifa released a statement saying a sensor in the ball showed no evidence it had touched a cable.
Our own Ed Aarons rated Noni Madueke as England’s poorest performer. On US TV Zlatan Ibrahimovic kept the internet furnace stoked with a half-time rant that suggested England were effectively playing with 10 men.
Thomas Tuchel has clearly done extremely well to reach the semi-finals of the World Cup but the number of unused and underperforming members of his squad will make for interesting historical analysis.
There were some handy cameos elsewhere though with Djed Spence making an impact at left back, Morgan Rogers adding much needed energy, and Dan Burn reminding everyone that even in the modern passing and possession era it’s perfectly fine to stick on a big fella when you’re defending a lead and enjoy watching him head crosses away.
Barney touches on the bewildering omission of Kobbie Mainoo. The Manchester United midfielder has played no part in England’s campaign so far despite being a reasonable option off the bench in his team’s first five matches and the blindingly obvious one in their sixth.
Tuchel went to absurd lengths to avoid playing him against Norway, instead starting a desiccated Declan Rice, replacing him with Eberechi Eze in an advanced role that destabilised the entire structure, followed by a half-fit right fullback Reece James as he played whack-a-mole to problems of his own making.
Across those 120 minutes the central midfield duo went from Declan Rice and Anderson to Bellingham and Anderson, to Reece James and Anderson, to Morgan Rogers and Anderson. Not Kobbie Mainoo, notably, who is presumably behind David Beckham, a cone, a giant lizard and the TV camera cable in the running for a spot. Why is Mainoo here? Why is Adam Wharton not here? These are questions deserving of a genuine answer.
Barney Ronay was in Miami to witness the latest instalment of the Jude Bellingham force of will tour. Beneath the deserved adulation for England’s two-goal hero there is no shortage of concern for a team that has lost its spark and a coach that no longer seems to know his best XI.
At times this felt like the familiar England parade of we are the hollow men, stuffed men, waiting for the game to happen to them, football as a slow suffocation in that thick sweet air. But they also had Jude Bellingham, who seems increasingly to exist as an entirely different category of human in this team, out there playing a parallel tournament, one that has to this point swept the rest of them along in its wake.
Preamble
Jonathan Howcroft
Whether you’re just catching your breath after an epic double header, or waking up to the news of a pair of thrilling quarter-finals, stick with us here for all the news and reaction from a gripping 2026 World Cup.
Just four teams remain alive in the draw with England and Argentina joining France and Spain in the semis. For the first time since FIFA’s rankings began in 1992 the World Cup semi-finalists are the top four sides in the world on paper.
England were made to toil in the Miami heat by Norway but not for the first time Jude Bellingham delivered when it mattered on the big stage.
Argentina also required extra-time to battle past European opposition; their hero was Julian Alvarez, but they also owe Breel Embolo a debt of gratitude for getting himself sent off when Switzerland had an historic result in their sights.
If you have any thoughts on any of the above, or indeed anything else World Cup related, do get in touch with an email – jonathan.howcroft.freelance@theguardian.com. Let’s get into it!
