The World Cup needed a dose of normality, and Poland's wider struggles being embodied by their star man's provided just that. MEX POL
The World Cup needed a dose of normality, and Poland’s wider struggles being embodied by their star man’s provided just that.It’s in winter for a start, in a country with no football heritage among a litany of other problems and it’s not followed any kind of accepted script to this point.
Then along came England, with assorted players and the manager under pressure and an unwanted distraction of the bollocksed up OneLove protest to face a tricky-looking opening fixture. We all know what that leads to – yep, Since being banned from Italia 90 due to the Cachirules scandal, Mexico have qualified for all seven World Cups and gone out in the first knockout round every single time. It’s a reassuring presence at every World Cup, and this is a tournament in grave need of reassuring presences.
More than that, closer examination reveals the pattern is even bleaker than that suggests. Every single time they’ve lost their first two games before collecting a futile win in the last. They don’t just go out at the earliest opportunity, they go out at the earliest opportunity. The result, which we found surprisingly welcome in its expectedness but which the BBC commentary and punditry team seemed to find disarmingly upsetting, was a cagey first half in which not losing the game was very much the order of the day.
Oh, hang on a second. No. Clearly none of that is going to happen. Lewandowski? World Cup? Ochoa? We know how this goes.
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