Good morning folks.
Let’s start today with some Interlull updates from our participants. Viktor Gyokeres, who scored the winning goal against Romania in Sweden’s last game, scored again in their 3:1 win over Poland. He got on the end of a nice cross at the back post, the move was decent and the finish was well controlled – watch here.
He spoke last week about how he needs to work harder to play more regularly for Arsenal and that won’t hurt his chances at all. While we wait for news on the extent of the Kai Havertz problem (I wasn’t told too seriously), any confidence boost is welcome for Gyokeres. We have a lot of football to play in the coming months and he needs to play a lot of minutes and score goals in the process. Doing international duty well can’t hurt a bit.
Elsewhere, Riccardo Calafiori looks set to star in Italy’s 4-1 win over Turkey, having played the full 90 from the previous game. Hopefully this is some common sense applied at Interlull, where some teams will have four games, and given that they face France on Friday, he can be kept fresh for a tougher match, at least on paper. There’s also a great video of him giving away his shirt, making a young fan very happy.
I love stuff like this and it’s a decent way to start the day. It’s better than picking up your mobile torture device to be bombarded with some of the worst things imaginable just by glancing at the news headlines. So the content I turn to early in the morning is dog videos. Yes, I’d rather see a Golden Retriever thrown in a swimming pool and a German Shepherd growl on the door stop than find out about the most horrible and stupid bastards on the planet doing more and more vile and evil things. If you find yourself in misery every time you pick up your phone, I heartily recommend building the algorithms with something you actually like.
Meanwhile, Ezri Konsa is reportedly a doubt for England ahead of tonight’s game against the Czech Republic. The Arsenal player was training alone yesterday, but I can’t find any concrete information on the nature of his injury. Hopefully nothing too serious. Our Spanish contingent will also face Croatia in Seville this evening, while Brazil will face Australia in a friendly after the two sides drew 1-1 last week. Hopefully tonight’s game will be on a better pitch as it looked like a cross between a league ground on Sunday and a no man’s land on the other.
Martin Odegaard/Bernardo Silva got things roaring. The Portuguese international was asked after the game if the Arsenal captain was unhappy with the foul and said: “That’s football my friend.” Odegaard himself pulled no punches and said:
“It’s a nightmare for him, he tackles me long after I’ve cleared the ball. I don’t understand what he’s doing. It doesn’t belong on the football pitch. It’s a shame people do it.”
I mentioned the fact that we play Real Madrid in December, but they could face each other before then, as Norway face Portugal again on Sunday. I guess Odegaard’s presence depends on how his ankle is, but he sounded relatively positive about it, saying:
“It probably won’t be good tonight, but hopefully in the next few days.”
It’s not exactly Patrick Vieira vs. Roy Keane, but there will definitely be an edge there. I don’t think Silva is the type to try to make things go away with an apology, so let’s see how that plays out. If he’s on the receiving end of a revenge-filled Norway run, I guess that’s just football. Erling Haaland, take all 114 of your frustrations out on a former team-mate you can hardly stand even when he’s on your side. You know what you want!
Right, I’ll leave it there for now. Thanks for all the great feedback on the new apps, you can even switch between the classic red icon and gold champions icon for your home screen, and we’ll keep working on new features and improvements for future releases. Also, don’t forget you can subscribe to our WhatsApp channel if you want to get updates on top blogs/stories/podcasts and more. Link here –
Have fun, more here tomorrow.