English media have an embarrassing Germany obsession

Editor F365
England-Germany-media

England are playing Germany and that’s bad news for all sense of perspective and appropriateness.

 

Herr today
Obviously nobody should be surprised by that Sun front page…

…but it’s the back pages that concern us. If you ever meet a sports journalist from The Sun or the Daily Mail, they are always keen to distance themselves from the front pages but this kind of thing…

‘ENGLAND face arch enemy Germany in the Euros last 16 at Wembley on Tuesday.’

…is just nonsense.

Whose arch enemy? Not mine and certainly not the players’, as 12 members of the current England squad were not even alive when England lost at Wembley in 1996 and even the oldest players were only six.

And Germany would never name England as their arch enemy; for them the real rivalries are with the Netherlands, Poland and Argentina.

So whose arch enemy? The Sun’s obviously. And they don’t speak for us.

Who foes there?
‘The great escape…but for once it will be the Germans who are shaking in their boots at the thought of facing their old football foe’ – Phil Thomas, The Sun.

Nope. Mediawatch has checked the draw and Germany are definitely not playing the Netherlands until the semi-final.

 

Feel the fear
‘Because it is Germany, we are gripped by a fear of history repeating itself’ – Dave Kidd, The Sun, who details ‘a sense of national dread’.

Mediawatch suspects that Phil Foden, Bukayo Saka and co are gripped with no such fear. Yet. Unfortunately, they will spend the next week being repeatedly told that the whole of England is gripped with such fear until they inevitably succumb themselves.

If only there was a way for the media to help England overcome this fear. Perhaps, and this is only an idea, by not always f***ing going on about it.

Past tense
On the Sun website:

‘HERR WE GO AGAIN: England face GERMANY in last 16 on Tuesday – get practising penalties lads’

It’s been 25 sodding years. Drag yourself into 2021 ‘lads’.

 

Haunted
Obviously there’s no chance of anybody dragging themselves into 2021 when there is so much yardage in continually harping on about 1996.

The Daily Mirror tell us on their back page that ‘ENGLAND will face Germany at Wembley – giving Gareth Southgate the chance to avenge 25 years of hurt’.

As Southgate himself said in 2018: “It will never be off my back sadly. That’s something that will live with me forever.”

Yes indeed. It’s going to be a long, long five days.

Avenge is sour
‘OH NO! NOT THE GERMANS AGAIN’ says the back page of the Daily Mail, who would have presumably preferred that England face actual world champions France or European champions Portugal.

And of course ‘ENGLAND have the chance to avenge their Euro 96 defeat against old rivals Germany in their last-16 tie’.

What if ENGLAND just want to play a game of football against a fragile and flawed team? Is that allowed instead?

 

Careless presser

Stand down, fella; it was a press conference in which Gareth Southgate talked about set-pieces.

Not everything is about Sam Allardyce.

The Enormous Turnip
‘England vs Germany will help determine whether Gareth Southgate is a triumph or turnip’ is a hell of a headline on a Brian Reade column on the Mirror website.

‘England face Germany in the Euro 2020 last-16 next week with the jury still out on Gareth Southgate – is he a Graham Taylor or a Terry Venables?’ is the sub-headline.

So what you are asking is whether the man who took England to a World Cup semi-final is equal to a man who failed to qualify for a World Cup, or whether he is equal to the man who led England to a European Championship semi-final?

And in order to be classified alongside the latter, he must beat Germany at Wembley, which is something Terry Venables failed to do.

Seems fair.

Stuart Pearce celebrates at Euro 96

 

Luk warm
Brian Reade also tells us in the Daily Mirror that Romelu Lukaku is ‘the hot favourite for the Golden Boot’.

Somebody missed that Cristiano Ronaldo double.

Man buys house

A few things to unpick here.

  • What the actual f***?
  • He bought the ‘luxury pad’/home in 2019. This is not news, even if you for some reason think that a man buying a house with his own money is ever news.
  • That is not a two-bed family home. And it’s not ‘modest’; it’s really bloody nice.
  • What the actual f***?

 

Can y0u feel the force?
On August 4 of 2020, Neil Custis exclusively revealed in The Sun that Manchester United had ‘forced the Germans’ of Borussia Dortmund to accept just £70m up front for Sancho.

On June 11 of 2021, Custis, with the help of Charlie Wyett, exclusively revealed that Dortmund have grown a backbone because ‘the German club are insisting United increase their offer of £61million to £78m, with a further £10m in add-ons’ for Sancho.

On June 24 of 2021, Custis is back to tell us that ‘MANCHESTER UNITED are closing in on an £80million deal to buy Jadon Sancho’.

Particularly sweet is that he details that ‘this time last year they embarked on a summer of bartering before refusing to meet an asking price of £110m from the Germans’. Was that before or after they ‘forced’ them to accept £70m?

Mediawatch