DOHA, Qatar — The burden of being England returned to global view on Monday inside Khalifa International Stadium, whereupon it looked like some giddy antithesis of burden. What was this lightness? What was this beauty? What was this barrage of fine art in this 6-2 pleasure against the proud defense of Iran?
England, which knows the weight of expectations, opens its World Cup looking gorgeous
It wasn’t the England to which finicky eyeballs grew accustomed in long-gone World Cups or in recent World Cup preps. That England so often looked heavy. That England, regardless of opponent, seemed to haul around the weight of the 50-odd million English, almost all of them knowledgeable soccer managers or observant player-managers. The cacophony of viewpoints in a nation unafraid to express them seemed to yield what such cacophonies often yield: muddle.
Now an England team winless and feckless across its past six friendlies waited at the end of another trail for its traveling fans. Their trail to the first stadium this time coursed down the boulevards and up the metro station escalators to this new men’s World Cup. It included easy sunshine, limited heat and a pretty chorus ringing through the city: the mid-afternoon call to prayer.
Here came England again, trying to stanch the woe at a mere 56 years (since that winning day at Wembley Stadium on July 30, 1966, kids). Here it came after the promising bolts to the semifinals at Russia 2018 and to the Euro 2020 final at home in 2021, but after a dour 2022 that throbbed with a 4-0 loss to Hungary in June that counted as the worst at home in 94 years.
Was it really necessary to try this again?
Apparently it was.
Then definitely it was, as England went and lavished the pitch with loveliness. It looked sprightly and young, given the splendor of 21-year-old Bukayo Saka and 19-year-old Jude Bellingham. It wasn’t even annoying that its thick pocket of fans in the corner of the stadium sang “Jingle Bells” out of season, with the solace of the bleacher lyric rewrite: Oh what fun it is to see England win away. It dredged a few goose bumps to hear, repeatedly through the match, the first World Cup renditions of “God Save The King” since Brazil 1950. It wasn’t even irksome that “Sweet Caroline,” having swept the Earth, ended matters.
“We’re really pleased to start the tournament in this way,” said Gareth Southgate, the manager who has helped England elude morass much of the time since 2016, “and really pleased with our attacking play. We know that Iran are usually difficult to score goals against so it’s a credit to [the players’] movement, the quality of their passing, the quality of their finishing.”
They committed beauty at 32 minutes, at 35, at 43, at 45+1, and they wrung three goals from that. They treated an audience that knows how to harrumph to a smorgasbord of how things should be done. On 32 minutes, Harry Maguire’s header curled and spun and … smacked the left end of the crossbar, which didn’t disqualify it from pleasing the eyes. On 35 minutes, Luke Shaw on the left sent a cross into the box, and 19-year-old Bellingham lurched his head toward the left to direct it back to the right and into the back corner of the net.
On 43 minutes off a corner, Maguire leaped near the right side of the box to head one to the center, where Saka left-footed it into the right side of the goal. And on 45+1, captain Harry Kane faked out a defender to claim a little space on the right of the box, then crossed to Raheem Sterling, who banged it out of the air past the right goal post.
All of it was gorgeous, and much of it stoked the serial playing of Gala’s 26-year-old dance hit “Freed From Desire,” one of those pop songs the Britons repurpose into football songs. They’d been freed from the desire to look how they looked Monday.
“We showed today how much quality we have and what we can do,” Saka said, and the day even brought some lightness to his narrative. He became the man of the match after scoring also on 62 minutes, a measure of balm for the last time he appeared for England in a major tournament when, just shy of 20, he missed the closing penalty shot in the Euro final against Italy, then suffered racist blowback from some fans.
“I think obviously it was quite a while ago, but it’s a moment that has been with me and will always be with me forever,” he said, “but I’m so grateful to …” — and then he went on a list that included Southgate and his club Arsenal. “When I feel that love from everyone around me, it’s really good for me and gives me confidence.”
His team knelt for the national anthem in its continuing statements against racial injustice. Kane did not wear the rainbow armband for which FIFA promised a yellow card in this restricted environment, and Southgate didn’t shy from answering about that. “I do understand FIFA’s position that you can set a precedent and it’s very difficult as to where do you draw the line,” he said, while clearly disagreeing on the particular subject and saying his team “won’t refuse to speak and won’t refuse to answer any questions.”
He and the other managers just have to home in on the football right now, he said, and in a muddled World Cup saddled with the human-rights issues of the host Qatar, their initial performance had been stirring, even to Carlos Queiroz.
Queiroz manages Iran for the second time in life, the other from 2011-19, including World Cups in 2014 and 2018, the latter a matter of almost escaping a group that included Spain and Portugal. The most seasoned of all managers, he has managed national teams in Portugal, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Colombia and Egypt, and so he says of life, “We win or we learn.” He said he learned amply Monday, simply running up against the bracing “quality, the speed, the competitive level of the English players,” with which his team “was not able to cope.” It would leave them “much better prepared now to play against Wales” — and then the United States.
Their learning had come against an England of brilliance and light, an England that has turned up some in recent years, an England the eyes could get comfortable taking in more regularly.
Source: WP
