Watching England v USMNT with footballers and a subs coach: Where’s Foden? ‘Stop crosses!’
Foden #Foden
Surely Luke Shaw had to slide that cross into the six-yard box. Why is Phil Foden still on the bench? Look how much winning a tackle means to Tyler Adams. How can you cross a ball in a pair of Dr Martens? Why does Harry Kane have nobody to pass to on England’s right? Did the United States really just turn down a chance to try to win the game?
Watching England versus the United States at The Athletic office in London on Friday night in the company of four people who have played and worked in the game turned out to be a lot more entertaining than the match itself.
Although they clearly feel the same sense of despair as supporters everywhere when a late Kane header flashes the wrong side of the post, their insight and own experiences in professional football mean that they view matches through a slightly different lens to the rest of us.
As a result, we now know exactly when Gareth Southgate will make his England substitutes during the rest of this World Cup, how you have to be wired a certain way to play for your country in a major tournament, and why one former Manchester City manager frowned upon players rolling their shorts up in between lathering himself in suntan lotion.
Our guests were:
The teams are lining up and England’s teenage star is quickly a talking point.
Natalie Haigh: “How good was (Jude) Bellingham the other day?”
Anthony Wordsworth: “Oh my God. So good.”
Haigh: “He’s just different. He’s like an old-school centre mid but with modern-day ability.”
Wordsworth: “He can do it all.”
Simon Cox: “He has got (Frank) Lampard, (Steven) Gerrard and (Paul) Scholes all wrapped into one.”
Stu James: “It’s incredible that he’s got the mentality to be able to play like that, not just the technique.”
Wordsworth: “You can just tell when you listen to him talk.”
Cox: “That was a really brave thing to leave the UK and go out to Germany.”
Wordsworth: “Do you think he’ll be looking at what happened to (Jadon) Sancho coming back to Man United?”
Cox: “I wouldn’t touch United. There are much better teams out there for him, where he can go from the level he’s at to the next level.”
With the game a slow burner, the conversation turns to how Cox felt playing for the Republic of Ireland in Euro 2012, where he featured against Spain, Croatia and Italy, and the mentality of elite players.
Cox: “I was never wired in a way to deal with that. You go to a World Cup, or a Euros, and it is the only thing that people are watching. If you do one really good thing, everyone will be talking about it. If you do one really bad thing, everyone will be talking about it. And I just wasn’t ready for if I did something wrong – that spotlight. Whereas we talked about Bellingham, he couldn’t care if he did something wrong. But he also knows the chances of doing something wrong are small. I don’t know whether I didn’t believe in myself enough. I think if I had (Steve) Sallis in the lead up to that – he works with Bellingham and a lot of top managers and players… sports psychology is massive and it wasn’t really something that I bought into. I didn’t really want it.”
Sammy Lander: “He (Sallis) used to be a teacher. He understands how people learn. His language is incredible. He simplifies everything. He always says, ‘Misalignment is chaos’ – everybody has got to be on the same page.”
Finally some action on the pitch. Harry Kane has his shot deflected behind and, more intriguingly, Harry Maguire has turned into Ricky Villa.
Haigh: “Go on, Harry! Go on, son!”
England have a goal kick and Jordan Pickford punts it long, despite the fact Harry Maguire and John Stones are alongside him.
Cox: “Maguire and Stones have got such a long way to get to the second ball now.”
Lander: “It’s a sprint, isn’t it.”
Wordsworth: “Have you seen what Arsenal do on goal kicks? (Aaron) Ramsdale gets the ball, he throws it to one of the centre-backs, they then put it down and pass it to him. And they try and suck people in to play in behind them. I actually asked him (Ramsdale) and he said that (Mikel) Arteta likes it because if you’re trying to play out from goal kicks, if you pass it to the centre-back, by the time he gives it back to the keeper, the centre forward is already halfway there. So if the defender passes it to the goalkeeper, they (the centre-backs) can split and it gives them more time on the ball. But as a fan watching it, I’m like… (gasps)!”
A great chance for the United States but Weston McKennie, with the freedom of the penalty area, sweeps his shot over the bar from 10 yards out.
Haigh: “Anyone feel like marking him?”
Wordsworth: “Why is (Bukayo) Saka going up the pitch when the ball is coming in?”
Haigh: “Forward mentality!”
The United States are on top and come close again – Christian Pulisic hits the bar.
James: “Could we not do more to get a block there?”
Wordsworth: “I was thinking that.”
Wordsworth: “I don’t think you can defend with your arms behind your back. If he drags it and tries to beat him, your arms are by your side – you need to then get your arms up (to run).”
Haigh: “We’ve gone into our shells a bit after those (United States) chances. We’re not wanting the ball as much. We’ve stopped being brave. They are pressing higher, winning more second balls. (Tim) Weah, on the far side, is cheating when we’ve got the ball. He’s just sitting between the back two and the midfield, so in transition he’s free every time.”
The United States continue to create opportunities.
Cox: “This is what we were saying earlier, they are so dynamic and athletic and that’s the reason why they’re a dangerous team.”
Shortly before half-time Pulisic heads wide – and probably should do better.
Wordsworth: “You’ve got to mark in the box. You can’t give people that much time, you’ve at least got to feel them, get your arm up. Especially when you’ve had a warning just before. Against better opposition, that’s 2-0 now. If that’s (Olivier) Giroud, he’s burying that.”
Haigh: “We haven’t done anything the last 10 minutes.”
England finally have possession in a good area. Bellingham, circled, is on the ball and Mason Mount has run in behind…
… but Bellingham chooses to play square to Shaw instead.
Haigh: “I thought he was going to slip him in?”
Wordsworth: “He didn’t play that pass because we’ve been under the cosh.”
Haigh: “If that’s the first 10 minutes… ”
Wordsworth: “If we’re 1-0 up he plays that pass.”
Haigh: “When we scored the first against Iran the confidence was oozing, we were taking risks.”
Wordsworth: “If he gives the ball away there it’s like, ‘Ughhh’.”
Tyler Adams, who is wearing the armband for the United States, catches our eye.
Wordsworth: “I read about the USA voting for their captain before the tournament.”
Lander: “Really? What a great idea.”
Wordsworth: “Yeah, the players voted for Adams, he was man of the match against Wales, so I wonder if that helped his confidence.”
Haigh: “That’s the thing I’d find interesting about the players voting for captain, if your previous captain is in the squad, imagine psychologically… that’s your pals, it’s not the manager. It’s the team-mates saying, ‘I really like him as captain more than I like you’.”
A rare England attack as Shaw charges down the left, gets around the back of the United States defence and tries to cut the ball back for Saka.
Cox: “That has to go across the box!”
Wordsworth: “In that instance, whip it hard. Look at Kane!”
Cox: “Across goal there’s more of a chance of that going in, either off one of their defenders or it gets through to Kane, rather than cutting it back to where bodies are.”
Wordsworth: “That’s a striker speaking! In that instance it’s decision-making.”
Cox: “I just think ‘violence’ across the box is better. Because with a cut-back you’ve got to be so precise and bear in mind that a cut-back is an opportunity for a counter-attack as well.”
Haigh: “As a defender, I don’t want it in there (slid across the six-yard box).”
Half-time and the game is goalless. During the interval, we talk about how defending has changed so much, in particular the fact players allow crosses to come into the box so easily now, almost as if they would rather that happen than get tight and risk being beaten and embarrassed.
The delivery for Pulisic’s first-half header, below, is a case in point – the United States had several chances to cross during that phase of play.
Cox: “Wally Downes was brought in as a defensive coach at Reading (in the Premier League). So he used to work with Graeme Murty, Ivar Ingimarsson, Ibrahima Sonko and Nicky Shorey, and he would say, ‘Stop crosses’. If you didn’t stop crosses it would be like a black mark against your name – that went for wingers as well as full-backs. He would say, ‘If you’re out there one-v-one, you do everything to stop the ball going into the box’.”
Wordsworth: “Full-backs are more concerned these days with how many assists they get.”
Lander: “No one prides regains the same as they pride assists. I think if you were to say to a full-back, ‘What’s your three favourite KPIs?’, they’d say, ‘Final-third entries, chances created, crosses delivered’. Nobody is saying, ‘Crosses blocked, duels won’.”
Wordsworth: “That’s how agents are presenting to clubs to get their players moves. It’s all to do with attacking play.”
The second half is underway and Haigh, Wordsworth and Cox are intrigued by Lander’s role as a substitutes’ coach. Substitutes were called ‘finishers’ at AFC Wimbledon, where Lander worked last season. At half-time, he would do position-specific work with the substitutes.
Haigh: “We were having a conversation about this at the club (Lewes) when I first joined because I wanted to call the subs ‘game-changers’. And someone at the club disagreed because they said, ‘What if they don’t get on? They haven’t changed the game’. But it’s exactly like you’re saying, it’s the mentality of, ‘I still have a role, I’m not just a sub for an injured player’. So then I said, ‘What about finishers?’ And they said, ‘Well, no, because if they don’t get on they’re not a finisher’.”
Lander: “We had loads (of titles), like ‘energiser’, ‘closer’, ‘game-changer’.”
Wordsworth: “’Cheerleaders’ and ‘back-up dancers’.”
Lander: “’Back-up dancer’ could have a negative connotation. It doesn’t empower you as much.”
Cox: “So at half-time, do you (Lander) have a quick two minutes with the manager? For example, he would be saying, ‘I’m thinking about making changes. You need to get ‘him’ ready?’”
Lander: “Yeah, like 45 seconds and blitz through it. We stay out, so I would speak to the gaffer to ask what he’s said to them (the starting players) and then relay that to the subs, so they’re all aware of any messages.”
Wordsworth: “So you’re an assistant manager (looks towards Haigh), when you can see this (England’s performance) not going your way, would you wait to go one down before making a sub?”
Haigh: “The first thought in my head would be how can I adjust what I’m doing with the players that are on the pitch because, ultimately, you’ve started them for a reason.”
Lander is now on his iPad, scrolling through his stats.
Lander: “So, interestingly, the USA subs have generally been full-backs. And the one that they’ve done almost every single time is right-back. So I’ll be interested to see whether that happens again today because obviously they use their full-backs quite a lot, whether it’s a case of blowing them out for 60 (minutes) and bringing two new ones on.”
James: “Could you say to someone beforehand, ‘You’re going to play for an hour tonight, so go flat out?’”
Cox: “I don’t think I would have enjoyed somebody coming up to me and saying, ‘You’ve only got an hour’.”
Lander: “I actually think it could work well if you could get players on board with it. Because I think physically you could really empty your tank if you knew whether you were just going to play for 60 minutes.”
Haigh: “I’d like to see Foden and Grealish come off the bench.”
Wordsworth: “Foden, definitely. You know Foden is going to get on the ball and be brave.”
Haigh: “I love watching him play. He reminds me of a kid in the playground – no pressure.”
Adams makes a brilliantly timed tackle to stop Raheem Sterling in his tracks and the United States captain is full of emotion afterwards.
Wordsworth: “Look at him celebrating. He’s buzzing with his tackle! That’s happened a few times in this World Cup. Someone makes a tackle and is like, ‘Come on!’”
Adams is clearly pumped at the start of the second half, which is a bit of a contrast with Neymar the night before.
Cox: “Did you see him come out after half-time (against Serbia)? He came out just in time for kick-off and hadn’t done his boots up.”
Cox: “He was knelt down for about a minute after kick-off. No rush whatsoever.”
James: “Imagine how some old-school managers would have reacted to that.”
Wordsworth: “Brian Horton. Oh, man. You weren’t allowed to do anything. But then he would watch training with his top off, oil on, sunbathing. Yet if he sees you doing something like rolling your shorts up, he’d say, ‘Rolling your shorts up. Are you effing big time?’”
England have not improved after the restart. Their play is slow and prosaic.
Haigh: “I feel like we need to make a sub. I’m getting bored now.”
Lander: “Yeah. It’s not exciting, this, is it?”
Haigh: “We’re sitting in a block against the USA. I think we need Phil or Jack (Grealish), someone who is going to take the ball and actually move an opponent.”
James: “We don’t have control of the game.”
Haigh: “No, we haven’t had since about the 25th minute, which is a bit worrying. It’s almost like fear.”
Lander: “I know this is not the worst result but I just think it’s the principle of it. He’s (Southgate) got to do something.”
Wordsworth: “It’s like we’re waiting for a goal to go in before we do something.”
Lander: “Would you put Jordan Henderson on to get a bit more legs and authority in midfield?”
Wordsworth: “Possibly.”
The clock in the top right of the screen has just ticked into the 63rd minute. Lander looks at his iPad again and trawls through his stats.
Lander: “England’s first sub is, on average, after 66 minutes. And they love a brace.”
Wordsworth: “If they now make two subs after 66 minutes…!”
Little more than sixty seconds later the camera pans to England’s bench, where Henderson and Grealish are getting ready to come on.
Cox: “Send me the Euromillions numbers!”
Cox: “I’d bring Mount off, put Henderson alongside (Declan) Rice and put Bellingham further forward.”
James: “Interesting that it’s Grealish before Foden.”
Wordsworth: “Foden will be fuming.”
Southgate’s decision to withdraw Bellingham is met with amazement.
Cox: “Big shout.”
Haigh: “More defensive, but does it give the forward players more freedom?”
Lander: “Very interesting, that. I’m surprised.”
Cox: “Do you think that’s a data-led substitution?”
Lander: “No, I wouldn’t have said so. I think that’s gut feeling. The next sub is usually 77 minutes.”
And, true to form, Rashford is about to come on at exactly that point.
Lander: “Oh my God, it’s 77 minutes. I’m on flames.”
Haigh: “You should be a subs’ coach!”
Lander: “Do you think that’s a like-for-like sub, or do you think that he’s going to bring something to the game that Saka hasn’t?”
Cox: “One thing I’ll say about Rashford is that he’s direct. He’s not always going to bring you end product but at least he’s direct.”
Wordsworth: “He’ll run in behind.”
Sergino Dest comes off seconds before Rashford and, judging by the full-back’s reaction, he doesn’t agree with the decision.
Wordsworth: “He’s fuming.”
Lander: “Eh, you started, mate. There’s a load of lads on the bench who would be happy with that.”
There is no sign of any improvement in England’s performance. In fact, it gets more baffling. Kane, circled, is now playing like a No 6.
Haigh: “CDM, Harry Kane – this is the tactical change we’ve been longing for!”
Twenty seconds later Henderson’s attempted cross is badly executed…
… and the ball (next to the US flag in the top corner of the photo below)…
… falls from the sky into the arms of Matt Turner.
Wordsworth: “Take those Dr Martens off!”
Lander: “I don’t want to make it all about subs, but all I’m saying is that’s the first time Jordan Henderson would have played that ball since the warm-up. It’s crucial. If he gets that right, you’re whipping a ball in or winning a corner. But that’s the first time he’s done it for 80 minutes. No muscle memory.”
Cox: “Surely you can’t be practising that (at half-time)?”
Lander: “Maybe not that technique. I didn’t see the half-time warm-up. But look at Grealish’s pass a minute ago. He’s come on and misplaced a pass. And that’s your fresh player that’s entering a game.”
Cox: “But that’s what we were saying about subs, it’s so hard to come on and get up to the pace of the game. It’s easy to become sloppy as a sub when you’ve been sat there for 65 minutes. It’s actually quite an art to come on and get up to the speed of the game.”
Lander: “Brentford had… I think it was jumpers, but it might have been trousers. Either way, it reads the core temperature of the player, so if it drops to a certain level, they know they have to go out and warm up to increase it so that they’re ready to come on at any given time.”
Haigh: “Technology, eh?”
Lander: “It’s mental. Brentford are good like that though, so innovative.”
Wordsworth: “Their under-23s could easily play in League One. They’d win League One. They’re a joke.”
Henderson is in an advanced position on the right and swings in a cross. But the United States have three times as many outfield players in the penalty area.
Haigh: “How many bodies have we got in the box? We don’t want to score, do we?”
Wordsworth: “No. Every time it’s gone wide, we’ve got one, maybe two in the box.”
There is one last chance for England after Grealish is fouled. Shaw stands over the ball.
Wordsworth: “Just fizz it. Look where the keeper is, you’ve got to be looking at that near post.”
Shaw delivers the free kick into a good area but Kane can’t direct his header on target.
Cox: “Great ball.”
Haigh: “He’s got underneath it.”
Now it is the United States’ turn to put a ball into the England penalty area from a set piece. At least that’s what we are all expecting to happen when Pulisic lines up to take the free-kick. Gregg Berhalter, the United States coach, glances at his watch before making a signal of some sort to Pulisic.
This is going to be the last action of the game – we are already into added time in stoppage time.
Instead of putting the ball into the England area, Pulisic slides a pass down the side for Giovanni Reyna.
Reyna ends up close to the touchline, deep inside the England half. He wins a throw seconds later and the final whistle is blown before it can be taken. There is disbelief that Pulisic didn’t put the ball into the box.
Cox: “Really?”
Wordsworth: “Wow. That’s embarrassing.”
Cox: “A chance to win!”
Wordsworth: “I would not want to go out for a beer with that manager. Imagine going for a night out with him.”
James: “Do you think he (Berhalter) was suggesting Pulisic should do that, or did he mean that time is up and that means this is a final opportunity to score?”
Wordsworth: “I thought initially that’s what he meant, ‘Last chance, put it in the box’.”
Haigh: “I think he was saying ‘Slow it down’.”
Wordsworth: “But they’re not guaranteed to beat Iran. You’ve got a chance to put that in the box and attack it.”
Haigh: “I agree.”
Wordsworth: “And it’s the last chance of the game.”
Cox: “Nothing’s really going to happen (after) from that going into the box. You’ve got to put it in there. It’s an opportunity to get a chance at goal. I think that’s poor.”
It’s all over and the post-mortem is already underway in the TV studio, in bars, at homes and in The Athletic office.
Wordsworth: “I feel like they (England) have got to change it for the next game.”
Haigh: “After half an hour that died a very slow death.”
Lander: “There wasn’t even a performance there.”
Wordsworth: “It just leaves you wondering when you come up against a better team.”
Cox: “We saw towards the end, Harry Kane gets on the turn, he’s looking for Trippier to go on the overlap, and he’s (Trippier) like, ‘I don’t really want to go’.”
Cox: “Shaw didn’t really want to go on the outside of Grealish. And you think if you really wanted to win the game, you’d be, ‘Go, go, go’.”
James: “Where does that come from? That has to be the coach, not the players, right?”
Cox: “I think conceding two against Iran put into place, ‘Let’s rein it in a little bit, let’s keep clean sheets and let’s go back to that’.”
Haigh: “I would have made subs earlier. I’m surprised he didn’t bring Foden on, especially on the left-hand side. Grealish, for me, takes too many touches. I think Foden would have been a bit more, ‘I’m going to get at you’. I think there was a bit of fear after we conceded the chances.”
Cox: “I think probably none of the USA team gets into the England team. You say, ‘We’ve got better players, we should go and win the game’. It just didn’t look like they wanted to go out and win the game.”
James: “It looked like we didn’t want to lose the game.”
Wordsworth: “Exactly that.”
Cox: “I think that’s an opportunity missed.”
(Top photos: Getty Images)