Mediawatch: Where dance moves beat actual football

Daniel Storey

You know it is international week when…
Okay, let’s just pause there while Mediawatch opens with a question: What do you think is the biggest story in football at midday on Wednesday?

Is it:

a) England’s game against Germany on Wednesday?
b) Gareth Southgate’s plans to rid England of their obsession with the past?
c) The sad passing of Liverpool icon Ronnie Moran?
d) Ilkay Gundogan being ‘horrified’ at Gabriel Jesus’ ‘cringey’ dance moves at an NBA match.

Depends if you manage The Sun’s football homepage, we suppose. Because the headline ‘Ilkay Gundogan horrified as injured Manchester City team-mate Gabriel Jesus shows off cringey dance moves at NBA game’ has been top of that page for over an hour.

 

BREAKING

That’s right, Dion Dublin has shared a photo of a bump on his car.

Welcome to football news in 2017. Some are speeding away in the race to the bottom.

 

Jock horror
Mediawatch hoped that the ludicrous ‘WE’RE NOT SCOTCHLAND’ stuff on England’s new kit would mercifully remain exclusive to the Daily Star, so we’re very disappointed that The Sun’s Dave Kidd also gives it credence:

‘England face Germany tonight wearing Scottish navy blue shirts.’

No they don’t. They play Germany wearing blue. A different blue (with no tartan effect like the current Scotland home shirt).

Also, what colour was Scotland’s away kit between 2012 and 2014? Oh yes, white. England white. This means war.

‘It’s like Spurs turning out in red shirts with white sleeves and a little cannon over their left tits.’

No it isn’t. It really, really, really isn’t. When England play in the same kit as Scotland, or have a thistle as their badge, come back to us.

‘The FA are actively winding us up.’

No they aren’t. You’re winding yourself up about something entirely trivial.

You just wait until Kidd finds out that Germany’s home kit is white like England’s.

 

Laying it on a bit thick…
From Charlie Wyett’s back page in The Sun:

‘Gareth Southgate’s England plans were rocked as Phil Jones suffered a suspected broken toe… caused by Chris Smalling.’

Yes, it’s not the embarrassing lack of strikers, the absence of key players, concerns over each of the goalkeepers or the general shallow pool of talent that is causing Gareth Southgate most concern, but an injury to the fourth-choice central defender for a friendly and a home qualifier against Lithuania.

Truly plan-rocking.

 

Laying it on a bit thin…
As part of their preview of Germany vs England, the Daily Mail do a ‘where are they now?’ feature on England’s team that faced Germany in Euro 96.

The entire section on Paul Gascoigne reads:

‘Sacked as Kettering boss in 2005 after 39 days in charge.’

Yeah, that seems to cover it all.

 

The international break, summed up neatly
‘Those of us who work on the sports pages of newspapers love nothing more than men shouting at one another. And for the next ten days, men shouting at each other is pretty much all we’ve got’ – Dave Kidd, The Sun.

You’ve sold it to us, Dave.

 

Don’t mention the war
Mediawatch agrees with The Sun’s Neil Ashton that England’s obsession with the past hampers our progress:

‘IT ALWAYS comes back to Euro 96 – football’s coming home, Gazza’s goal against Scotland, the tub-thumping 4-1 win over Holland at the old Wembley. Germany moved on. England, sadly, never really have.

‘Since the Germans beat England in that 1996 semi-final en route to winning the tournament, Die Mannschaft have also reached two World Cup finals (winning in 2014) and were runners-up at Euro 2008. England are still banging on about Gareth Southgate’s fateful spot-kick and what might have been had he beaten Andreas Kopke.’

Quite. Might have been worth having a word with the headline writers then Neil, who have ‘Football’s coming home… in style’ and ‘Gareth will end the hurt’ elsewhere in the paper.

At least you tried.

 

Erm…

Because no tabloid newspaper ever gives multiple back pages to a potential transfer story. Mediawatch read about Wayne Rooney’s will he/won’t he with China for a sodding fortnight.

Oh, and also John, your own paper has a Wayne Rooney update. Weren’t links to MLS and China on back pages weeks ago? Weird one.

 

The height of optimism
Mediawatch does not doubt that Fenerbahce do indeed fancy signing Mesut Ozil (both the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mirror have identical stories with near-identical paragraphs published at precisely the same time), but there was one line in John Cross’ version which stuck out:

‘Arsenal landed Ozil from Real Madrid four years ago in a club-record £42million deal, and would look to at least recoup their money.’

Arsenal bought Ozil at the age of 24 for £42.5m with three years remaining on his Real Madrid contract. If they think they can ‘at least recoup their money’ for Ozil at 28 with one year remaining on his contract, somebody needs to get China on the phone.

 

Love letters
As the newspapers try desperately to hype up a friendly Mediawatch suspects half the country has forgotten about, spare a thought for poor Ian Passingham in The Sun.

Passingham was asked to compile an ‘A-Z guide’ of England in Germany. We suspected he was struggling when ‘I’ was for ‘inadvertent’, ‘K’ was for ‘key moment’ and ‘R’ was for ‘rethink’. The letters don’t actually mean anything, do they?

Still, ‘X’ brings the predictable high point:

‘X is for X-ray. England won in Berlin again in 2016, beating the world champions 3-2. But the win came at a cost for Jack Butland. The Stoke keeper had to go off after hurting himself in what looked like an innocuous incident. Scans later revealed a fractured ankle.’

Played.

 

‘Sports Agenda’
We’re not saying that Wednesday is a slow news day for Charlie Sale’s Sports Agenda column in the Daily Mail, but his fourth story is that former Chelsea striker Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink has had planning permission turned down for his new house.

Please do keep us updated should he decide to appeal.

 

Quote of the day
“I do struggle with the language and driving on the wrong side of the road was a problem – on the first day alone I went into the wrong way down two crossings. I’ve already scraped the rims on my car wheels on the pavements! I’ve been here for a month and a half, but I am yet to see the sun. It rains practically every day. I really miss pasta, too” – Andrea Ranocchia’s move to Hull seems to be working out well.

You really can get pasta in Hull, Andrea. But we take the point on the sun.

 

Recommended reading of the day
Richard Conway on the Syrian national team.

David Woods with Roy Hodgson.

Philip Olterman on Mario Gotze.