Kevin Whitcher
Tuesday 19th June 10am (Countryside north of St Petersburg)
An early rise yesterday. 4.45am to catch at taxi from our Moscow hotel to board a train for the airport and return to St Petersburg. It was a smooth enough journey, although at the conclusion, Ivan found out we could have actually made the train trip from the airport to the centre of Moscow gratis both ways due to our attendances at the matches in the city. You live and learn.
At the airport some minor drama as Ivan printed out our boarding passes from a machine, gave me mine but it then transpired, after he had gone through the checkpoint, that he had actually printed out two identical passes with his name on. Behind a sliding door, he was not to be found, although eventually, the security guard and I spotted him already on the other side of the luggage x-ray conveyor belt and he was able to return and print out the required boarding pass. Fair play to the guard for helping out – he could have simply turned me away - and the boarding pass codes to print the ticket were on Ivan’s phone.
Anyway, he’d checked in online early so we had two seats with extra legroom by the emergency exits, so could at least stretch out once we boarded. There were some Mexicans on the flight, but too tired to make any noise, Back in St Petersburg, we stopped off at the house for some brunch, giving me the opportunity to meet Mrs Merc, who had been at the summer house (or dacha to use the local term) since my arrival. We in turn, headed there after we had eaten. It was about half an hour’s drive, and a complete change of scene to St Petersburg. A large number of Russian families that live in urban areas – probably about 50% - have such a retreat where they go for a break, although a little less so during the winter months. Let’s face it, in terms of land mass there is plenty of room for such places.
We arrived by 12 noon, some seven and a quarter hours after rising this morning, which seemed to me very quick, given the number of different journeys we had made by taxi, train, plane and automobile, as well as fitting in a shower and a meal at Ivan’s (as well as posting yesterday’s diary piece). I settled down for a glorious and much needed three hour kip, eventually surfacing for the second half of the Sweden v South Korea game in Nizhny Novgorod. In the original plan for this week, devised before the draw, Ivan had included a visit to this game on our itinerary. However, at the time, although it would have been possible to travel there in time from Moscow, there was no real option for getting back to St Petersburg in time for our match on Tuesday evening. The logistics didn’t really work, so he decided we would give it a miss.
Although it would have been nice to see an extra stadium, I can’t say I was too heartbroken when the draw produced these two countries for this fixture. And in truth it was far from a classic match. Next up, Belgium dispatched Panama fairly comfortably in the other game in England’s group. I think Panama, along with Saudi Arabia, are one of the poorest teams I have seen so far.
And so to England. What can be said? Harry Kane can finish. Jesse Lingard and Raheem Sterling can’t. If England continue to miss their chances with such regularity against better teams than Tunisia they are not going to progress too far, although having seen the merits of Panama, it is now unthinkable they won't make the last 16 at least. Kyle Walker needs to be coached the difference between holding off his opponent and swinging the elbow, although it looked more like it was Ashley Young who had been telling him how to use his body in that respect. Tunisia were just as bad, with a range of cynical fouls and some variation on freestyle wrestling at corners. Kane was dragged down on numerous occasions, although I think someone had a word with the referee as the match progressed as when Kane headed England’s late winner from a corner, he had not been bundled to the floor. The three points were key, as who knows how Tunisia might do in their remaining two group games, or for that matter how England will fare against Belgium.
This morning I noted there was some hoo-hah back home about Patrice Evra patronizingly applauding Eni Aluko for her analysis of the Costa Rica team before their match against Serbia on ITV. I haven’t seen any of the domestic coverage over here, that delight awaits me upon my return. However, I did watch footage on the news story where I read about it, and I have to say that, yes, while Evra was out of line, someone needs to have a word with Jacqui Oatley and Henrik Larsson. Their comments after Aluko’s rundown on the merits of the Central American team, including Oatley’s words “she’s good” after Larsson commented “very good”, laid the ground for Evra to stupidly applaud. Oatley should have just let it go and ignored Larsson’s comment. It’s a storm in a teacup, but why the surprise that an experienced female footballer paid to be in Russia to do a job has done her research? Sure, the knowledge she relayed was nothing that anyone else could not have discovered online, but the reality is that 99% of the watching audience tune in and get this kind of information from the people in the studio. Aluko has certainly done punditry on women’s matches, and I suspect she is better than some of her male peers in Russia. However, talking of punditry generally, genuine insight tends to be fairly rare, by which I mean talking about the game that has just been witnessed and its nuances that are not obvious to the viewer, some of which can only be seen in the flesh by those who can see the whole playing area all of the time (ITV’s pundits for the Serbia v Costa Rica game were watching on monitors in their studio rather than being at the stadium, so on this level they are limited in what they can offer at half and full time). My own personal favourite for informing me of things I am not aware of is Ruud Gullit, who can read a game and spot the key areas where things are making the difference. On the radio, Pat Nevin is pretty good as well. But generally, we don’t get much we can’t see for ourselves.
Today, Ivan and I head back to St Peterburg for the evening match between Russia and Egypt. We will return to the summer house for my last full day here, before my return to London on Thursday. I’ll continue the diary on an occasional basis once I am back, just to relay some thoughts on the football, but I have a couple of submitted pieces on Arsenal matters waiting for posting on the blank days, so it will be a mix of normal service with a bit of World Cup by the end of the week.
