Monday 24.3.25 - 2024-25 Game 113 - World Cup 2026 Qualifier - Group K - England (1) 3 (Reece James 38, Harry Kane 68, Eberchi Eze 75 v. Latvia (0) 0. Attendance: 79,572 inc. 2,000 away fans.
“I thought you said to me, that the last time you travelled to see England” - 17.11.24. They won 5-0 v Republic of Ireland, Nations League, at Wembley Stadium -“lt was the last time ever, that you were going to watch them play.” She's right, of course. I did say that. But hear me out. Who here has never made such a sweeping statement, about not ever going back, knowing full well that you probably/definitely* will be doing? It's how addicts and obsessives work (all of us). Isn't it!?
“Latvia though! Why them? Aren't they 140th in the FIFA world rankings, or something daft like that?” Well, someone's been doing her homework. But, so what!? When I go to international matches at Wembley, it’s to support England. Not to make kissy faces at the opposition or to collate stacks of information about them to put together a volume of Who’s Who? Dedicated to their bestest ever players.
Oh! Go on then. Just this once. Vitālijs Astafjevs, made 167 appearance (scoring 16 times) for Latvia between 1992 and 2010. Here he is (pictured below) on the occasion of his 100th appearance for Latvia, challenging Edgar Davids of Holland (Euro 2004. Braga, Portugal. 23.6.04). Like me, you might well recall having seen him plying his trade, alongside such luminaries as David Hillier and Ian Holloway, in the Bristol Rovers midfield.
No!? Well, might I politely suggest, that you should take more notice in future, because by being so inattentive you are obviously missing a lot of very important stuff, that could help you out no end one day. Like when you have a few column inches to fill on a blog, about an international football match and you’ve got a memory like a sieve. You might even have just mislaid those hastily scribbled memory prompt notes on the way back to the station. D’oh!
Thomas Tuchel's first game in charge as the new manager of England, was the 2-0 victory against Albania at Wembley on Friday night. It wasn't an especially entertaining or convincing performance, but that's international football for you. It's a results based industry mi’ ducks. Ditto tonight. Arsenal’s latest teenage sensation, Myles Lewis-Skelly , netted on his England debut, and Harry Kane, inevitably, added the second goal. Elsewhere, tonight’s unfancied opposition, Latvia, also won their first group game, 0-1 away from home, in Andorra, with Dario Šits scoring the only goal of the game in what was their first win in five games.
My own personal international debut, as a spectator, i.e. I was there in person, not watching it on the telly, was: England 5 v Cyprus 0. April 16th, 1975. It was the same day as ‘Little’ Jimmy Osmond’s twelfth birthday. I know this, because one of the pieces of useless trivia that I acquired in my adolescence, that I still remember to this day, is that I’m one day older than the youngest member of that famous singing family. The trip to Wembley was a present from my granddad.
Malcolm ‘Supermac’ Macdonald scored all five England goals on that memorable night at Wembley. And Cyprus fielded two substitutes who were both called Andreas Konstantinou. One of them was a goalkeeper, the other, err… wasn't. Another England debutant that night, Kevin Beattie (the Ipswich Town defender), had a goal disallowed. Beattie was one of the most underrated players of his generation and could put himself about a bit too. Ask the Cypriot goalkeeper who had to leave the pitch injured about that. Everton’s Roger Kenyon was an unused substitute for the Cyprus game, but I have no recollection of, nor can find any record of him ever actually having played for England. Although he was also on the bench (unused again) for the previous home game against Germany.
As an impressionable twelve year old, the glamour of a 5-0 win enthused me. And after my second ‘in the flesh’ experience: England 5 v Scotland 1. 24.5.75. Home International Championships. OMG! I don't have the words to express just how much I really miss those. Well, the future looked very bright indeed. And, wasn't it just!? For purposes of clarification, I’m rolling my eyes, sighing heavily and shaking my head, all at the same time here. Who says I can't multitask?
So anyway, fast forward back to the present day; the 5-0 win over the Republic of Ireland in November, would have symmetrically bookended my international ‘career’ perfectly results-wise anyway, on the occasion of my retirement from ‘national service’. But then the tickets went on sale for the Albania and Latvia games, I got a good deal on the Monday rail travel options and what do y’know! As if by magic, Wembley here I come.
These days, I’ve taken to only attending the (very) occasional England home game. While wondering to myself what on earth it is that keeps dragging me back for more.
Did I fall over that very narrow dividing line, between being loyal and being bloody daft? Yes, head first and landed in an undignified and crumpled heap. I’m busted!
Am I a glutton for punishment? Possibly.
Mentally ill? I wouldn't dispute that.
Am I a natural born thrill-seeker with a craving for riveting entertainment? N/A
Or is it that I’m hooked on this Godforsaken game of football, in all of its multifarious forms? Ooh! That sounds like it could be a whole lot of fun, err… sometimes.
Truth is, I don't have the mettle to go full on ‘cold turkey’, to rid myself of my long-standing dependency on a regular fix of international football. So instead, I’ve opted for weaning myself off of the hard-stuff gradually, by only attending low-dosage fixtures. I thought it was fair to say, that a new manager’s transitional squad versus. “140th in the FIFA world rankings, or something daft like that?”, fell comfortably into the not entirely high-octane bracket. So imagine my horror when I took my seat just as the ‘sold-out’ announcements began to circulate on social media.
I don't actually enjoy the big games and the whole scene associated with them nowadays. When the “Football’s coming home!” (I detest that song, with a vengeance), rent-a-mob, Cocaine-addled, vape-culture, ‘Can I have your shirt?’ placard brandishing, shithead-types descend on the national stadium, from wherever they have been hiding since the last major tournament. Yes, I got old. And my already wafer-thin tolerance levels have evaporated altogether with time. I tell you, that Victor Meldrew character has got absolutely nothing on me, in fact, I need to know exactly what he's got to be so ‘effing cheerful about all of the time.
So while I’m in moaning mode; it's a damn shame that the England U21 game against Portugal at the Hawthorns was played tonight. Where's the logic in that? ‘I don’t believe it’, that whoever was in charge of scheduling the U21 fixture couldn't have found an alternative date, when the first team weren't in action. Lee Carsley’s side beat the Portuguese 4-2. It's a shame that a few more people (including me) couldn't have been there to watch it. If only I’d realised sooner that England v Latvia was going to have such a gravitational pull numbers wise, I would probably have been in West Bromwich tonight instead. In spite of the final score at Wembley, I suspect that I would probably have enjoyed the spectacle more.
Arriving back at Nottingham station, I chucked my programme and teamsheet on the passenger seat of my car, before driving home and low and behold, there amongst my detritus were the scraps of paper containing my Sanskrit like, barely legible observations about the night’s events. So I will take a pause before posting this blog tomorrow, when I have had the chance to decipher them. Interlude.
First things first. The appointment of Thomas Tuchel. Why not? Because he's not English? Well, the last guy was and he did alright, didn't he? But when he moved on, the job of elevating England’s standing on the world’s stage, was still very much a work in progress. I honestly believe that ‘our Gareth’ had taken the team as far as he could go with them. That said, Southgate deserves a whole lot of credit for pointing the national team in the right direction and moving them up the ranks.
But it is a stone cold fact, that any potential managerial candidates with the experience and/or know-how to potentially build on the foundations that Southgate has put in place, are all foreigners. England don't need a fresh start, they need someone who can take them a few steps higher than the very promising level that they have already reached and all things considered, Tuchel fits the bill perfectly. Eddie Howe? He's English, his stock is very high and surely he is a future England manager in waiting. But I don't think the timing would be right for either party at this moment in time, or not for at least a couple of years yet, maybe even longer
Tuchel, who has initially been signed up on an eighteen month contract, has only been working with the squad for less than a week. And though both of his opening games were fairly lacklustre, against two opposition sides who were there for the taking, England emerged triumphant, two wins, two clean sheets, six group points and in a nutshell, that’s what qualification fixtures are all about. Never mind the aesthetics, check out the group table. But, it's definitely been a case of so far, so bloody so, over this elongated weekend, hasn’t it! And there's obviously plenty of work still to be done. So please get on with it, ASAP.
England dominated the ball tonight, but struggled to find a way through Latvia’s crowded rearguard. They had to be patient, very patient, as did the restless crowd who’d headed to Wembley for this Monday night qualifier, probably with high expectations that the hosts might enjoy a bit of a goals bonanza on the occasion of these two sides meeting each other for the first time ever in an international fixture. Alas, the deadlock wasn't broken until seven minutes before half-time, but the opening goal had a real mark of quality stamped all over it, when Reece James curling free-kick from outside the area bulged the net.
I haven't noticed this being mentioned elsewhere, but it’s something I saw happening with my own eyes. At half-time a whole lot of people left the stadium. There is a no re-entry policy at Wembley, so none of them were coming back. They’ve paid their money and they are entitled to go home early if they want to. But by heck! There's ‘nowt as queer as folk. As the second-half plodded on, more gaps began to appear in the crowd, even after Harry Kane doubled the home side's lead from Declan Rice’s measured cross in the 68th minute.
Latvia had put a shift and a half in, defending their goal… and their followers, occupying the blocks to the right of where I was sat responded accordingly. While the England fans took to amusing themselves by making paper aeroplanes out of their print at home tickets and even starting a Mexican Wave. FFS! Make it stop.
As the away team began to tire, Eberechi Eze belted home a third England goal inside the final fifteen minutes, which were thereafter played out in a pedestrian manner, more associated with a friendly game. I guess that after a fashion, these two back to back games games were effectively akin to Tuchel’s own ‘pre-season’ before the real graft starts. And if he didn't already know how big a job he has on his hands, he bloody well does now.
At least the queues for the station weren’t very long when I eventually started my journey home, given that so many people had already buggered off ages before I got there. To conclude: Two wins is two wins, six points are six points. Nobody ever said it was going to be pretty. But, let's not beat about the bush here, it’s never ever been anything more than mildly attractive anyway, in all of the years that I’ve been doing this kind of stuff.