While waiting for France and Portugal, and having already seen Germany, Spain and Italy, it can be said without opening the umbrella that, if England has come to Teutonic lands to end a 58-year drought, it has work ahead of it. Quite.
Victory with the hook in the debut of the ‘pros’ in the Euro Cup, with an approach of three right backs in the eleven (Walker in his place, Trippier with a changed leg and Alexander-Arnold as Rice’s companion in the double pivot), a Crystal Palace center back (Guéhi) next to Stones, Bellingham as ’10’, Foden on the left and Saka on the right. A tactical chaos with more organization than it may seem on paper, but with insufficient offensive merits and hierarchy.
The game started with excitement in the stands. The 6,000 Serbs whistled ‘God save the King’, wind music silenced by the English majority (40,000 in the stands) and returned in the chords of the Balkan anthem. Everything in life has a cure, except lack of education.
There was expectation to see Bellingham’s level, after a final third of the season with Madrid with its tongue hanging out. Fortunately for England, he seems to have recharged his batteries, although not enough to match Jude from August to December. He looks lighter, more dynamic and agile. And what he has never lost, as it did not happen to him in Madrid, is his arrival in the area and his scoring ability.
Jude opened the scoring in the 13th minute. Pass into Walker’s space in the run of Saka, the Arsenal attacker’s cross touches Kostic’s boot, takes flight and ends up on the edge of the small area where Bellingham arrives to send the ball into the net. Powerful header from Jude to become the third youngest English scorer (20 years and 352 days) in the history of the Euro Cups, after Rooney and Owen.
Goal from its prime version in Madrid. Bellingham went down to the center of the field, started the offensive phase and finished it with a goal from the second line. Happiness staged with its classic celebration and accompanied from the stands with the English a cappella ‘Hey, Jude’. Chant that returned fifteen minutes later after a change of orientation in the center of the field with the outside of his right boot and in volley format. Seen in slow motion, more than one person in the stands drooled. If it had been a rhythmic gymnastics contest, he would have gotten five tens. Too much class.
It is true that England’s dominance did not materialize on too many occasions, but Serbia did not even tickle in the first half. Mitrovic, who has scored 46 goals in Saudi, and Milinkovic-Savic, his teammate at Al-Hilal, still had the desert sand in their eyes.
Serbia revives in the second act
The pulse came to Serbia in the second half. Less is nothing. It is true that his first shot between the sticks was in the 82nd minute, from Vlahovic, but before that he had already threatened England with a couple of attacks on the left wing. He also generated anxiety in the air, helped by the eccentricities of Pickford, who spent too much energy encouraging his parish and making his high jumps and kicks mysterious. It would do you good to focus on stopping. It is usually a coin toss.
Of kane, we learned that he did not stay in the concentration hotel thanks to a header in the 78th minute that Rajkovic first cleared, and then spit off the crossbar. It was the only moment in which he stopped being invisible. Like the rest of his teammates, except for a few decent minutes from Saka and the first half from Bellingham. Jude and nothing else at the English premiere.
