Eight Goals? Nor Way
Eight Goals? Nor Way
500 SUBSCRIBERS CELEBRATION ISSUE!
500 subscribers! FIVE HUNDRED! What the hell? That's so many people! Thank you all so much for signing up and sticking with me!
The Week In Ball
Having said last week that I didn't think much had been going on, this week has really ramped up.
We've had confirmation of the Christian Eriksen deal, Raphinha has gone to Barcelona, as has Lewandowski after a threat of a Kane-to-City style saga.
Sterling has gone to Chelsea, a move that seems to have thrilled most of the Chelsea faithful. They've also nabbed Koulibaly from Napoli.
From the Goalkeeper's Union, Brentford have brought in hot Greek-Albanian Thomas Strakosha from Lazio and Forest have snapped up Wayne Hennessey.
United have also completed the signing of Lisandro Martinez who is getting an inappropriate amount of shit for his height (5'10"). I understand some of the reasons (centre backs are normally brick shithouses) but it and I'm gritting my teeth here, seems like just another stick to beat United with. (Yes I would happily beat them senseless for signing Eriksen but that's personal)
And finally, today Roma look set to announce the signing of perpetual man-child Paulo Dybala after his release from Juventus. (Had to spell that out in full there lest anyone think he was being released from juvenile detention).
Also a quick mention that it looks highly likely that Arsenal are going to sign Zinchenko so I'll be keeping an eye on that.
We've also started to see a number of pre-season friendlies take place, giving us the first look at some of the signings. I would say not to take too much from them. I can see there are already rumblings about Darwin, whereas Jesus has been an unmitigated success. Long may that continue of course but let's not get too disheartened/excited by showpiece games.
Lastly, a reminder that all these new signings could be yours! Via the medium of Fantasy Premier League. If you fancy it do sign up for the TWUTAB League here!
Euro 2022
What a tournament this has been so far. We're a shade over halfway and it's been absolutely brilliant. As I always caveat when I talk about women's football, I don't know anywhere near as much of the history or the current scene as I do men's but tournaments are great ways of discovering players you didn't but perhaps should know about and also give you a way in to learning about the different football cultures of players from different nations and where they are in terms of progress in the game.
For example it was clear that Northern Ireland have all the passion and drive to succeed but without the backing to quite take the next step. Caragh Hamilton proved to be an excellent and insightful pundit on the team and in general and that's another great thing about tournaments. Because of the number of games and the wide variety of nations involved most broadcasters bring in people who are close to the camps and you get to discover fantastic new voices.
While we're on that subject I think, for the most part, the punditry and the commentary has been excellent. I really enjoy Anita Asante, Kelly Smith and Fara Williams from the ex-England set up, as previously mentioned Caragh Hamilton was fabulous, Anouk Hoogendjik, Laura Georges and Vicky Losada from the Netherlands, France and Spain respectively are all great (and Laura especially is very funny) and I was pleasantly surprised by Jonas Eidevall who I'm really warming to.
Obviously there are others, Wrighty's contribution goes without saying, the main presenting team of Alex Scott, Eilidh Barbour, Reshmin Chowdhury and Gabby Logan are always great, I have a personal soft spot for Jonathan Pearce and the rest of the commentary team (shout out especially to Robin Cowen for her Lord Sugar shade) are far more engaging than many in the men's game.
And so to another reason to love them: THE DRIP. Look at all these gorgeous outfits, they're all amazing (John Arne Riise slightly letting the side down with a boring black pant, white shirt combo)
It may seem shallow to talk about this and be happy that pundits on a women's sport show look good, when so often women's appearances have been weaponised against us but I find it massively refreshing and wonderful that they're being allowed to express themselves and be this fantastic riot of colour. It's such a joyous thing to look at when you're used to men in shirts and "the pundit shoe", even the women on men's shows are generally in a single colour, usually black and it can be drab and conservative. Football is so much fun and it's so much better when you can be free to show it.
As per last week though, I don't want to say this to hold up women's football as a bastion of perfection and how it should be. Indeed, almost immediately after I sent my last issue stating that women's football more widely embraces the mantra of 'football for all', there was a piece during the England Norway game on the lack of diversity in the England team and the WSL in general.
This is definitely where men's football leads the way. The difference is really stark. Without wishing to sound like someone who 'doesn't see colour' you really don't notice the number of Black players in the men's squad, it's just how it is and how it should be, however the lack of Black players in the women's squad screams at you.
It was interesting to hear about it being down to the fact that women footballers were pushed out of urban spaces and were therefore more likely to train in leafy suburbs requiring effort and cost to attend when we know from the men's game and even from the women's (read Hope Powell's story in A New Formation for more details on how she started playing football in the cages of her estate) that there is an abundance of talent in inner cities and that that talent is more likely to come from Black communities (the lack of representation of other communities is something for another day).
We can only hope that going forward we see more Black players break through. Look at the France squad for example or the Italian squad, both of which have Black players as captain and others throughout the team. It's certainly not through a lack of availability!
So, after all that I suppose we should talk about the games right?
Where to start, where to start...
Oh go on then, it was a week ago but: ENGLAND 8 - 0 NORWAY
What an absolute RUSH that game was. It was like Sarina and the gals had taken on all the criticism about being clinical in front of goal and gone, yeah, OK, you're right, but we'll show you! It was a masterclass. The team looked so well drilled, so confident. It was such an incredible joy to watch. Many thanks to them too for not doing the usual drubbing thing of scoring all the goals in the first half and allowing us the treat of an Alessia Russo goal and a Beth Mead hattrick, truly wonderful. (Let's not mention the softness of the penalty that opened the floodgates huh?)
There was a fun analysis of the game on Wrighty's House which you can listen to here which of course dealt with the fact that this wasn't just an historic, unprecedented win, it was against a good, solid team, something that Jessy also wrote about in their newsletter, which I hope you all signed up to last week! Analysis from people other than those I know is of course available :)
The rest of the week, which saw all of the remaining second group games and most of the final ones. We had to wait until England were back in play against Northern Ireland for another drubbing, allowing England to finish the group with 14 for and 0 against. Germany also made it through without conceding but "only" scored 9.
So we bid adieu to Norway and Northern Ireland, Denmark and Finland, Portugal and Switzerland and probably Iceland unless they pull something out of the bag against France and Belgium Italy is a stalemate. Who the other team to leave remains to be seen. If Italy or Belgium win and Iceland don't it will be whoever is the victor. If they draw and Iceland lose, as is likely, Iceland will need to ensure they better the goal difference of either team. If Iceland win, they're through.
This leaves us with the following quarter finals:
England v Spain
Germany v Austria
Sweden v tbd
France v Netherlands
These are some tasty match ups! On paper France v Spain has the potential for the most chaos/goals although Sweden did put 5 past an admittedly defenceless Portugal yesterday. Whatever happens it's going to be good and if you haven't yet, do watch the matches, it's been fantastic!
The {Offside} Thirst Trap
It's Summer, it's the hottest day of the year so far, so who am I to deny you some Thirst? Here's a small selection of pics I've enjoyed from the off season:
Merch Stand
I had put myself on a Premier League shirt opinion ban so as not to spoil my much sought after thoughts on the season's new jerseys via my Ratings Thread, but I'm sorry, I can't keep quiet about this one. Look at it!
Look at our beautiful Brazilian boys in it. It's so gorgeous and so much better than that horrible lemon yellow from last season. By the end of the year I really hated that.
And as I said on the TL, as this and the other had already been leaked, we just need the pink third kit to be announced now.
Something you may remember is that a while back I had a bit of a rant about the accessibility of merch to people at the plus size end of things and my friends, I've had an exciting week:
Firstly this stunning Leah Williamson shirt appeared on my TL and so I wearily clicked only to discover it's available up to a 5XL. Delivery was fast too and it's great!
And then this incredible Beth Mead number appeared. Now I was fully aware of the creator's Smith Rowe Records shirt but had assumed it was a S, M, L situation BUT NO! Bloatees go up to a 7XL! So I of course nabbed the Mead for Speed and the Smith Rowe classic.
Finally this is a great shirt from Sludge x Art of Football. Sadly this one doesn't make it into the 'oh shit I can get one!' category but I really like and I love the styling.
Extra Time
First of all I need to address something... heinous. My man José has had a tattoo. The design looked fine, I didn't mind it one bit, but then I saw it on him and...ehhhhh I dunno man. HOPEFULLY it's still healing and is relatively fresh because it really doesn't have the detail I was expecting and, as a fairly heavily tattooed person, know is possible. It's all a bit of a big blob of black tbh.
Here it is so you can judge for yourself (and here's the original design):
A bit of light relief to follow for these, well, actually right now extremely bright times but you get the drift
That's all for this week, once again thank you so so much for subscribing and reading. I'll be back next week, hopefully with the news that England have made the Euros semi-final! Until then!
If you really like the newsletter, please feel free to buy me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/emilyoram, or donate via my Tip Jar on Twitter
If your bag is Footballer Instagram content and even more regular thirst traps, follow the newsletter’s Instagram on thewayutalkaboutball
And finally, if you want more real-time football nonsense and frankly all sorts of other nonsense, and you don’t already, follow me on Twitter @_emilyoram.