Marcus Rashford takes ‘drastic action’ as England World Cup fans ‘go berserk’

World Cup Day is finally here! Time to put all the politics and other concerns to one side and enjoy all the bloody football!

Or, if you’re Mediawatch, spend 10 minutes trying to decode an indecipherable pun and then wonder for far longer than is healthy for anyone whether it’s possible to be an ‘ex-stalwart’.

Actual real competitive football is just hours away. We’ve almost made it.

Letter opener

The Sun have written an ‘open letter’ to England’s ‘footie heroes’ ahead of the World Cup.

It is, obviously, f*cking dreadful. We’ve read it all and urge you not to do likewise because we really don’t think it’s safe for human consumption in its nauseating entirety. It contains precisely the exact level and style of pish you’re expecting if you’ve ever had the misfortune to read a ‘Sun Says’ Editorial even once in your life.

We won’t go into it in too much detail because our stomach won’t take it, but yes, of course it ends with an unforgivably hack ‘for Harry, England and St George’ paean to Harry Kane. Of course it riffs on ‘Hey Jude’ when urging Bellingham to ‘take a sad England and make it better’ while Mediawatch does a bit of sick in its mouth.

Of course it mentions the ‘tough times’ our ‘island nation’ (England isn’t an island, lads) has suffered recently, and sad, solemn head-shaking at how ‘the butchery and violence on our streets shames us’ with not one single ounce of self-reflection about any role the right-wing media of which The Sun is such an enthusiastic participant might have played in that.

Of course it spells Eberechi Eze’s name wrong while telling him how proud they are of him.

Of course it reminds England’s players they are ‘lions’ and ‘it’s time to roar’ and ‘bring FOOTBALL home’.

But weirdly it doesn’t manage to find any room at all to add ‘and if you don’t we will be absolute pricks about it, imply you have somehow let the country down and suggest your failure to win some football matches is a grave moral failing on your part while our reaction to that is very grown up and rational actually’.

MAILBOX: England ‘due a bad one’ after riding our luck under Southgate

Action stations

Grave news from the Mirror.

Marcus Rashford takes drastic action after Barcelona make final decision on Man Utd transfer

He’s removed ‘Barcelona’ from his Instagram bio. Because he doesn’t play for them anymore. We do worry about how it could disrupt the England camp to have such a loose cannon who is taking such drastic action.

Berserkers

From drastic action to fans going berserk now, as the non-stop tabloid service to Hyperbole Town thunders out of the station.

‘Wtf is modern day football?’ – England World Cup fans go berserk as spectators scoff food while sat at pitchside TABLE

The Sun, we beg you to keep something in reserve. The tournament hasn’t even begun yet and you’re already reaching for ‘berserk’ to describe some mild and performative social-media snark. It’s just way too early and over such absolute tish and fipsy.

We’re all old enough to know precisely what kind of thing ‘England World Cup fans go berserk’ can actually be reserved for, and it’s not ‘some people on X-formerly-Twitter sending throwaway tweets about some fans eating some food’.

We’re not being quite fair, though, are we? It’s not just that fans were eating some food, is it? It’s that they were eating it at a TABLE.

There’s no excuse for us omitting that key detail because The Sun have shown how important it is by going all-caps not once, not twice but thrice. Eating food at a TABLE if you can imagine such a thing.

Maybe Mediawatch is just getting old, but sitting pitchside with a burger and a beer and a TABLE to put it all on looked like quite a vibe.

Take a chanc on me

Mediawatch spent a good 10 minutes of its morning staring at this Mirror headline trying to see the pun.

TAKING THEIR CHANC! England player ratings vs Costa Rica as Bellingham and Gordon send timely reminders to Thomas Tuchel ahead of World Cup

We have now concluded it is in fact probably just a typo and we have wasted precious time that could have been spent doing literally anything else.

But please do leave a comment if you can see what we cannot.

64-bit

Martin Lipton has spent a lot of words in The Sun trying to convince, we think, mainly himself that this World Cup could actually be great despite, well, you know… everything. We understand the desire and the thought process, to be honest, however desperate and pie-in-the-sky it might seem.

But one line jumped out.

Indeed, crazy as it seems, it would have been better to have a 64-team model, as that would have been a far easier to understand tournament.

Martin, please do not encourage them.

Warts and all

Mediawatch is absolutely not having this Daily Star headline for one single second

Manager sacked by Premier League stalwarts as family saw rumours and phoned club

It’s about Rob Edwards and Wolves. We’re sorry, but you simply cannot be calling a team ‘Premier League stalwarts’ a month after they are massively and entirely relegated out of said league.

Does, though, leave us pondering whether it’s possible for Wolves or indeed anyone or anything to be an ex-stalwart. Not exactly how we expected to be spending our time on World Cup Day. But better than reading any more open letters.