England’s in the semifinals for the World Cup, a source of mass celebration in the UK for its fans. ICYMI: their excellent squad announcement video highlighting diversity and shot on location at Wembley, with kids from various walks of life calling out the names of the squad. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this unusual way of announcing the squad sparked off a lot of rage online. Wonder why. In any case, if you’re staying up to watch the semis, good luck, and may the best team win!
One of our fav articles so far on the English team, or in particular, their coach Gareth Southgate, now the focus of many memes including #GarethSouthgateWould, is by The Ringer:
The past 150 years of soccer history has been the tale of the game slipping away from the country that invented it. Soccer is one of England’s most successful exports, but the farther away it traveled, the less its inventors were able to control and dominate it. Until the 1940s, England largely stayed home, playing and usually beating competition from Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. It wasn’t until 1949 that England lost at home to foreign competition. A year later, they appeared in their first World Cup, a group-stage defeat that included a 1-0 loss to the United States—to this day one of the greatest upsets in World Cup history. In 1953, England took its first home loss to continental competition: a 6-3 thrashing at Wembley at the hands of Hungary’s Mighty Magyars.