Key events
Just been looking over England’s recent record against the Netherlands … they’ve beaten the Dutch just once in their previous nine attempts. Their last meeting was in the Nations League semi-finals five years ago, when the Netherlands won 3-1 in extra-time. England’s starting line-up that day?
Pickford, Walker, Stones, Maguire, Chilwell, Rice, Delph, Barkley, Sancho, Rashford, Sterling (c).
Here’s what the man of the moment, Bukayo Saka, had to say last night about stepping up for his penalty, three years on from that miss against Italy at Wembley.
You can fail once but you have a choice whether you put yourself in that position again or not and I’m a guy that is going to put myself in that position. It’s something I embrace. I believed in myself and when I saw the ball hit the net, I was a very happy man.
I wasn’t focusing on the past – that’s done. I can only focus on now. Of course I know there’s lot of nervous people watching, my family included in the crowd, but I kept my cool and scored. We have some of best taker penalty takers in the world and we had talked about that if it did come to penalties, we would be confident. I’m happy we showed that today and scored five out of five.
Listen, we know we have two more games until we can change our lives and make some history. We’ll enjoy tonight but we’re really focused on that.”
Fascinating piece from Jonathan Wilson on the complications of this tournament, a coming together that doesn’t necessarily mean the end of division.
This is very sweet.
Can we talk about this, the move away from scribbled notes on a scrap of paper to a typed-up, immaculately taped list of directions that’ll most likely end up as merch poster to flog? Too formal for my liking.
Jordan Pickford of England looks at his Powerade bottle, as he reads a list of penalty takers and their assumed directions, during the penalty shootout during the UEFA EURO 2024 quarter-final match between England and Switzerland at Düsseldorf Arena (2024) pic.twitter.com/tnfF0HYiaC
— Great British Getty Images (@shitbritishpics) July 6, 2024
Here’s what Jonathan Liew’s been up to in Germany away from the football.
Some discussion among colleagues as to how the England team will have voted in the general election. The broad consensus: Jordan Pickford probably didn’t vote, Kyle Walker and Harry Kane went Tory, Kieran Trippier and Bukayo Saka went Labour, Kobbie Mainoo went for an independent who promised to keep the local mobile library open, and Declan Rice voted tactically for the Lib Dems.
Respect to Ronald Koeman for actually giving an answer here instead of the usual diplomacy of: “We’re just focused on the semi-final, ready for any side, blahblahblah.”
If we play the final, my preference is Spain because we had France in the group stage.”
Over to the Netherlands’ victory, with Jonathan Wilson writing about the big man up top.
For Ronald Koeman, as for Louis van Gaal before him, when there is an emergency for the Netherlands, call for Wout Weghorst. The Burnley striker might not be the Cruyffian idea of the Total Footballing front man, but this is not the first time he has turned a game for his country after coming off the bench. Weghorst didn’t score, but he gave the Netherlands a focal point to their attack around which Cody Gakpo, Memphis Depay and Xavi Simons could operate, and he gave them a way that Austria couldn’t find in the last 16 to break down this Turkish defence. He actually won only one header, touched the ball just 13 times, but presence is not easily measured by statistics.
Barney Ronay wrote about Bukayo Saka’s moment of catharsis. His smile after slotting in his penalty was lovely.
If you need to do some catching up, here’s Jonathan Liew on England’s rather nonsensical journey to this point.
Preamble
We have our final four. England were on their way home – just like it was against Slovakia – until Bukayo Saka decided enough was enough. Cue the most unEnglish display in a penalty shootout: they were ice-cold.
The real entertainment, though, was in that humdinger between the Netherlands and Turkey, with end-to-end attacks, terrific last-ditch blocks from the eventual victors, and a particularly electric display from Cody Gakpo. The Dutch are going to cause England some serious problems.
I’m here all day so drop me a line with your thoughts, queries, pleas to Gareth, semi-final plans, whatever you fancy. Cheers!
