Key events
42 min “I never understand why professional players don’t shoot from distance more often,” says David Wall. “Most of them can probably put the ball in the top corner at will from around 20-25 yards. Of course when the opposition are closing down intensely there is more pressure when taking a shot but in a game like this, with a super-deep defensive line, it seems a better option than trying to work your way through a packed defence.”
I think it’s partly because of the increased use of data, which shows it is a relatively poor option. Not certain on that though. And, as you say, evaluating it as a strategy when you’re playing against a parked bus.
38 min Rogers beats two defenders with some dizzying footwork on the right side of the area, only for his cutback to be intercepted at the near post. Moments later Rogers over from 25 yards.
36 min An injury to an Andorra player allows everyone else to get a drink and, in England’s case, receive some instructions from Thomas Tuchel.
34 min Madueke lobs a return pass back towards Bellingham, who cuts across a sweet strike from 25 yards. It’s swerves straight into the loving embrace of Alvarez.
32 min Madueke, who has been England’s liveliest attacker to date, wanders over to the right, beats his man through sleight of hip and lifts a cross on the turn that hits a defender and leads to a VAR check for handball. Not exactly sure what happened but it was cleared pretty quickly.
31 min “This is going well,” says Brian Withington. “Particularly enjoying Cole Palmer’s corners – clearly a James Ward-Prowse tribute act in terms of the standardised outcome : reputation ratio.”
Please don’t talk to me about ratios, Brian, I had a cholesterol test yesterday.
30 min Rogers pushes the ball into the area for Kane, and Garcia comes across to make a strong tackle, one he celebrates like an Andorran Joelinton.
28 min Andorra are doing well defensively. They’re restricted England to two shots on target, seven overall. And right now they’re having their best spell of possession to date.
25 min An Andorra free-kick is cleared as far as Borra 30 yards out. He eyes immortality and finds Row K.
23 min James commits a needless on Fernandez, a small sign of England’s burgeoning frustration. I knew Tuchel should have included David Nugent in the squad.
Chance for Kane
19 min An early ball down the left releases Madueke, who gallops into the area and slides an inviting ball across the face. A slight – and brilliant – touch from the defender denies Kane an open goal, with the ball instead running towards Jones beyond the far post. His first touch is heavy and, though he does well to catch up with the ball and screw it back into the middle, Kane shoots wide of the near post. Replays show that Jones’ cutback was slightly behind Kane, hence the miss.
18 min Konsa, who had stayed up following England’s seventh corner, manufactures a chest-volley from 15 yards. He doesn’t make proper contact and almost follows through into the face of a defender.
17 min Alvarez again comes for a corner with an endearing but entirely misplaced conviction. He gets nowhere near the ball and is relieved to see it ricochet to safety.
14 min Bellingham, still up following a corner, lays the ball back to Madueke 20 yards out. He swishes a good shot through the crowd and Alvarez dives to his left to make a decent, if ultimately comfortable, save.
13 min Palmer wanders over the left and strikes a dangerous cross towards Kane at the near post. Garcia does well to get in front of him and clear.
11 min Konsa appeals to the referee that he’s being manhandled when Palmer’s deep free-kick bounces harmlessly across the area. There was a VAR check but the challenge – some might describe it as a suplex – has been cleared.
9 min Still goalless. Has Thomas Tuchel taken England as far as he can?
8 min “Can I be the first of presumably myriad Preston North End fans to recall that it was David Nugent who scored the third in 2007?” asks Nick Duffy. “One cap, one goal, and from one yard. All respect to DN, but it was going in anyway. Never saw him move as fast again as he did chasing that tap-in.”
It was indeed. I’d like to think he yelled “Ave it!” as he lashed the ball into an empty net from 0.0001 yard.
6 min Rogers’ low ball across the area is backflicked by Bellingham towards Kane, whose shot, taken off balance, hits the chest of a defender in the six-yard box. I think it was going in.
5 min Palmer’s corner tempts the keeper from his line. He’s nowhere near it but an England player (Burn I think) is slightly ahead of the ball and inadvertently heads it back towards Palmer, who by now is offside.
4 min Bellingham is trying to set the tempo. He drives forward from midfield and pokes a pass towards Madueke that is intercepted at the expense of a corner.
3 min “I vaguely remember the Backstreet Boys and could just about dredge up that tune,” writes Charles Antaki. “But when l looked it up, one of the first things I came to was this extremely disrespectful and utterly hilarious version of it.”
1 min Bellingham rakes an early shot from 25 yards. Well struck but straight at the keeper.
1 min England kick off from right to left as we watch.
“In what is admittedly a fairly on-brand move,” begins Matt Dony, “I’m following this from a Welsh music festival in Swansea. (Headlined by Gruff Rhys. Bing Bong!) One of the three (videprinter: three!) guitarists in Los Blancos is rocking Everton’s yellow away kit from 1990. The one with the blue zigzag. Club loyalties be damned, it’s a thing of beauty.
“Anyway, on topic, I really had no interest in this game until I found out Jordan Henderson is starting. I don’t really understand what’s happening with him and England, but I’m very pleased to see him there. (Cue him having an absolute stinker and looking miles off the pace.)”
And I thought Thomas Gravesen’s signing would forever be the most unlikely link between Everton and Los Blancos.
The players are lining up for the anthems. It’s a nice sunny evening in Barcelona, where Andorra are playing due to their new national stadium not meeting Uefa deadlines.
“Your playlist chat got me to thinking,” says Joe Pearson. “How out of touch am I? So I looked at the Billboard Hot 100. Of all the songs there, I think I’ve only heard ‘Espresso’ by Sabrina Carpenter and that one by Shaboozey (both probably on SNL). And who the actual feck is this Morgan Wallen, with 37 entries in the Hot 100? I think I’ll just fire up my iPod (yes, I have one that still works) and listen to obscure prog bands. I know what I like.”
Joe, my beloved, you are not out of touch, merely free. Pull up a pew, let me introduce you to some of 2024-25’s finest songs, none of which have troubled the Billboard Hot 100.
Thomas Tuchel talks to ITV Sport
We want to bring the hunger, do the things have worked on in training and find the solutions because we expect a low block. We discussed the spaces we think we will find, and it’s on the players to show the hunger and determination to [find space behind] the back five.
Then our focus will be on counter-pressing because when you have 70-80 per cent possession it is natural you have ball-losses, which is not a bad thing if you show the right reaction and hunt the ball.
[Curtis Jones] will be the right-back, but like I said we expect lots of possession and when we hve the ball he will play as a No8 or No10.
[On Cole Palmer] His talent is obvious, he’s a very unique personality. He’s not the loudest person in camp but he doesn’t have to be.
We’ve had good training sessions, the energy was there, and now it’s about the commitment to accept we are huge favourites and do what is necessary to win the game. It’s on us to bring it to the pitch; the opponent will focus heavily on defending.
“How about Scotland at Wembley in the Euro 2000 playoff?” offers Shaun Tozze. “It might look like a childish dig (and it is) plus we won on aggregate in the end so might not count as a ‘defeat’, BUT from Scotland’s win in 1985 (1-0 Richard Gough) at Hampden until the present day, this is the only time they have beaten us in 13 games. Okay, only six were genuinely competitive) but that’s still spanning 40 years.
“Also (*cough*) I put a bet on a 2-0 Scotland win that night because I just had a bad feeling. Watching with a Scottish mate, he was having none of my ‘I knew you guys would make this difficult’-type stuff until I showed him the betting slip.”
They almost made it 2-0 as well with that David Seaman save at the end. You make a great case but I’m not sure it meets the threshold for ‘shocking’. I didn’t walk home from the pub that night feeling shocked. Profoundly depressed about England’s chances at Euro 2000, sure, but not shocked.
A reminder of the teams
Andorra (possible 5-4-1) Alvarez; Borra, Llovera, C Garcia, Oliveira, M San Nicolas; Rodrigo, Babot, Guillen, Cervos; R Fernandez.
Substitutes: Gomes, Pires, Da Cunha, M Vales, Rebes, A Martinez, E Vales, Lopez, De las Heras, Jesus Rubio, Joao Da Silva, M Garcia.
England (possible 3-2-4-1) Pickford; James, Konsa, Burn; J Henderson, Jones; Madueke, Palmer, Bellingham, Rogers; Kane.
Substitutes: Walker, Rice, Colwill, Gibbs-White, Gordon, D Henderson, Toney, Eze, Alexander-Arnold, Lewis-Skelly, Trafford, Chalobah.
Referee Igor Pajac (Croatia)
“The worst England qualifying defeat in living memory has to be Euro 2008,” says Paul Haynes. “Russia 2-1 England (and as you’ll recall, Israel then beat Russia to put qualification back in England’s hands, only for England to lose 3-2 defeat to Croatia).”
I think I’d politely disagree with that. Russia got to the semi-finals! It was bad – it always is when England fail to qualify, but I was thinking – but personally I wouldn’t call that a shocking defeat.
Jonathan Wilson on Ivan Toney
When he left Brentford for Al-Ahli in the Saudi Pro League, it made sense that he should lose his place in the England squad. He had voluntarily taken himself to a lower level and it was a reasonable assumption that his sharpness would diminish as a consequence. But he scored 23 goals in 29 starts this season, playing well enough at least to be entered into the conversation for squad places.
ITV are reporting that England will play the usual 4-2-3-1. If so, the line-up will be something like this.
England Pickford; Jones, Konsa, Burn, James; J Henderson Bellingham; Rogers, Palmer, Madueke; Kane.
Mr Cold starts today, possibly as one of two No10s alongside Jude Bellingham.
The head to head
This is the fourth team Andorra and England have been drawn in the same qualification group. To date England have won six out of six without conceding a goal
Euro 2008 qualification
England 5-0 Andorra
Andorra 0-3 England
World Cup 2010 qualification
Andorra 0-2 England
England 6-0 Andorra
World Cup 2022 qualification
England 4-0 Andorra
Andorra 0-5 England
Pop quiz: in the 3-0 win in 2007, who scored England’s third and finished with an international record of one game, one goal?
Andorra XI
Andorra (possible 5-4-1) Alvarez; Borra, Llovera, C Garcia, Oliveira, M San Nicolas; Rodrigo, Babot, Guillen, Cervos; R Fernandez.
Substitutes: Gomes, Pires, Da Cunha, M Vales, Rebes, A Martinez, E Vales, Lopez, De las Heras, Jesus Rubio, Joao Da Silva, M Garcia.
Which season is it anyway?
“Do you reckon there’s a definitive cut-off point between this (just gone) season and the next one?” wonders Shaun Tooze. “Do this weekend’s games count as early in the 2025-26 season or are we still in the final throes of the 2024-25 one ? Feels like the latter to me.
“So when does the 2025-26 season start, do you think? This summer feels like there’s no break. I need a line draw.”
You may have inadvertently done me the most solid of solids here, Shaun. Given I’ve lived my life in football seasons rather than years, I’ve been putting together Spotify playlists for every season of my life with a separate playlist for the summer/off-season. But I never know where to draw the line.
To take one example close to my heart: I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys went straight in at No1 on 15 May 1999, so still in the 1998-99 season, but it spent the summer dribbling down the charts and didn’t leave the hit parade until August. So is it 1998-99 or Summer 1999?
With luck, somebody will answer your question and I can, a-hem, homage their logic to facilitate my dirty little imperatives.
As for your actual question, in my head the 2024-25 season ends with the Club World Cup final on 13 July, then 2025-26 begins with the Community Shield on 10 August.
In reality isn’t that simple, but anyone who wants to bring the Conference League qualifying phase (which begins on 10 July) into this conversation is one depraved individual.
Thomas Tuchel has picked a very attacking side – an understandable approach with England likely to have around 80 per cent possession, which it itself is around 72 per cent of the law.
It looks like a 3-2-4-1 formation, but who can really tell. What we can say with complete conviction is that there are five changes from the 3-0 win over Latvia in March. Dan Burn, Jordan Henderson, Curtis Jones, Noni Madueke and Cole Palmer replace Marc Guehi, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Declan Rice, Jarrod Bowen and Marcus Rashford. Of those five, Rice and Lewis-Skelly are on the bench. Their Arsenal teamate, as reported earlier, isn’t quite fit enough to be in the squad.
England XI: Henderson, Madueke, Jones all start
England (possible 3-2-4-1) Pickford; James, Konsa, Burn; J Henderson, Jones; Madueke, Palmer, Bellingham, Rogers; Kane.
Substitutes: Walker, Rice, Colwill, Gibbs-White, Gordon, D Henderson, Toney, Eze, Alexander-Arnold, Lewis-Skelly, Trafford, Chalobah.
A question for the floor
When was last’s England genuinely shocking defeat during qualification for a major tournament? Northern Ireland away in 2005? And even that – memorable though it was – didn’t really threaten England’s participation at Germany 2006. For a defeat that was both shocking and potentially decisive, you probably have to go back to Maggie Tattcher’s darkest hour in 1981.
England were in all sorts after that defeat in Norway and only qualified because Romania – a point behind with two games in hand – made a complete Horlicks of the run-in.
Preamble
Hello and welcome to live coverage of the World Cup qualifier between Andorra and England in Barscelona. According to the Fifa rankings this is the 173rd best team in the world against the fourth best, which in domestic terms is roughly the equivalent of Cray Valley Paper Mills v Chelsea.
It’ll be a huge surprise if England fail to win – and an even bigger one if they win without somebody finding fault in the scoreline or the performance. This is the lot of an England manager during qualification, certainly against the weakest sides in their group.
For England this game feels, at best, like a bit of admin – especially as it’s being played in June, towards* the end of a long, draining season. And though every match is a chance for Thomas Tuchel to develop his team, today’s game will likely bear no resemblance to the kind of contest England will be desperate to win next summer.
There are tougher games to come in the second half of qualification, especially against Serbia. England’s job is to reach that stage with a 100 per cent record, and ignore any grumbles if they don’t win today’s game 10-0.
Kick off 5pm.
* It’s June and we’re towards the end of the season, not about to reach it. Gianni!
