Key events
Which season is it anyway?
“Do you reckon there’s a definitive cut-off point between this (just gone) season and the next one?” wonders Shaun Tooze. “Do this weekend’s games count as early in the 2025-26 season or are we still in the final throes of the 2024-25 one ? Feels like the latter to me.
“So when does the 2025-26 season start, do you think? This summer feels like there’s no break. I need a line draw.”
You may have inadvertently done me the most solid of solids here, Shaun. Given I’ve lived my life in football seasons rather than years, I’ve been putting together Spotify playlists for every season of my life with a separate playlist for the summer/off-season. But I never know where to draw the line.
To take one example close to my heart: I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys went straight in at No1 on 15 May 1999, so still in the 1998-99 season, but it spent the summer dribbling down the charts and didn’t leave the hit parade until August. So is it 1998-99 or Summer 1999?
With luck, somebody will answer your question and I can, a-hem, homage their logic to facilitate my dirty little imperatives.
As for your actual question, in my head the 2024-25 season ends with the Club World Cup final on 13 July, then 2025-26 begins with the Community Shield on 10 August.
In reality isn’t that simple, but anyone who wants to bring the Conference League qualifying phase (which begins on 10 July) into this conversation is one depraved individual.
Thomas Tuchel has picked a very attacking side – an understandable approach with England likely to have around 80 per cent possession, which it itself is around 72 per cent of the law.
It looks like a 3-2-4-1 formation, but who can really tell. What we can say with complete conviction is that there are five changes from the 3-0 win over Latvia in March. Dan Burn, Jordan Henderson, Curtis Jones, Noni Madueke and Cole Palmer replace Marc Guehi, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Declan Rice, Jarrod Bowen and Marcus Rashford. Of those five, Rice and Lewis-Skelly are on the bench. Their Arsenal teamate, as reported earlier, isn’t quite fit enough to be in the squad.
England XI: Henderson, Madueke, Jones all start
England (possible 3-2-4-1) Pickford; James, Konsa, Burn; J Henderson, Jones; Madueke, Palmer, Bellingham, Rogers; Kane.
Substitutes: Walker, Rice, Colwill, Gibbs-White, Gordon, D Henderson, Toney, Eze, Alexander-Arnold, Lewis-Skelly, Trafford, Chalobah.
A question for the floor
When was last’s England genuinely shocking defeat during qualification for a major tournament? Northern Ireland away in 2005? And even that – memorable though it was – didn’t really threaten England’s participation at Germany 2006. For a defeat that was both shocking and potentially decisive, you probably have to go back to Maggie Tattcher’s darkest hour in 1981.
England were in all sorts after that defeat in Norway and only qualified because Romania – a point behind with two games in hand – made a complete Horlicks of the run-in.
Preamble
Hello and welcome to live coverage of the World Cup qualifier between Andorra and England in Barscelona. According to the Fifa rankings this is the 173rd best team in the world against the fourth best, which in domestic terms is roughly the equivalent of Cray Valley Paper Mills v Chelsea.
It’ll be a huge surprise if England fail to win – and an even bigger one if they win without somebody finding fault in the scoreline or the performance. This is the lot of an England manager during qualification, certainly against the weakest sides in their group.
For England this game feels, at best, like a bit of admin – especially as it’s being played in June, towards* the end of a long, draining season. And though every match is a chance for Thomas Tuchel to develop his team, today’s game will likely bear no resemblance to the kind of contest England will be desperate to win next summer.
There are tougher games to come in the second half of qualification, especially against Serbia. England’s job is to reach that stage with a 100 per cent record, and ignore any grumbles if they don’t win today’s game 10-0.
Kick off 5pm.
* It’s June and we’re towards the end of the season, not about to reach it. Gianni!
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