This is what happened to me watching the france/argentina matchI need the game to grip my whole being, completely involved and living every moment, not just appealing to some inner decadent aesthete in yellow silk pyjamas
I'm not into sport but I love this picture cos I went down a rabbit hole reading about siege engines the other day after reading that section about them in Anathemata - mind-blowing.
Spheroid would have been more accurate.This guy seems insufferable, but this is peak overeducated sports writer -
Yet these were not the only grounds for the disorienting disposition of this encounter. Every time the men in white took possession of the sphere in the proximity of the left wing, they were consistently forced to funnel it, in turn, to the centre of the pitch, rendering most of their offensive efforts tortured, even disjointed. The side in red could simply defend their territory in the middle with impunity, secure in the knowledge their opponents were powerless to hurt them on their right verge.
That’s a pretty terrible paragraph, right? But that’s what happens when you wilfully restrict your options. You have Kieran Trippier, a right-footed left-back who doesn’t even bother trying to disguise the fact – no feint, no shimmy, no darting eyes – that he’s going to turn back inside. You have Phil Foden, a left-footed player with very little interest in playing on the left wing, who always wants to come short into the central areas. England are essentially a team playing on 70% of the pitch, which is like trying to write an entire paragraph – like I did above – without using the letter A.
England hit new low with dire performance too bad to be boring | Jonathan Liew
Such was the amusing ineptitude on show, it felt like watching a Woolworths 1990s football bloopers videowww.theguardian.com