{"id":7175,"date":"2022-11-22T00:44:51","date_gmt":"2022-11-22T00:44:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=7175"},"modified":"2024-02-08T10:06:24","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T10:06:24","slug":"misc-sport-world-cup-day-2-england-vs-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=7175","title":{"rendered":"SPORT: Football, World Cup \u201822 – Day 2, England vs Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Bellingham celebrates his first World Cup goal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I managed to get home early enough to catch the England Iran game yesterday. I missed the first ten minutes or so, and arrived back during what turned out to be a marathon time-out, due to the Iranian goal keeper bashing heads with one of his defenders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This wound up adding 14 or 15 minutes of extra time to the first half. Is that a record?When I got home I knocked on our neighbour\u2019s door, knowing he had the day off, and thinking watching the footy on the social might be fun. It was. Too much fun, in the end!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The match itself was goalless when I arrived. But, once play resumed, the goals started coming thick and fast. I think it was 3-0 by half time. Not<\/em> the dull game I had worried it might be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Saka – scored twice – celebrates.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the end we wound up having dinner round there; I picked Teresa up at the station, and Regina very kindly fed us all. The only bum note was my excessive intake of alcohol (ah, the irony!*). I bought a couple of cases of Shipyard Ale, on a two-for-one (almost) promo\u2019, at Sainsburys. And then drank way too many cans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I\u2019m paying for it. With a hangover, and a gassy bloated tummy. Aaargh\u2026. How I hate being an idiot! Still, at least the football was fun. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* Qatar tried banning booze altogether, upsetting sponsor, Budweiser. I\u2019m still not clear what the situation is! Here\u2019s something on the subject<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pickford and Kane celebrate. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Amazingly, with six goals, Kane – instrumental in a few of them (feeding Sterling the third goal, and Rashford, the fifth – on his third touch! – for example), and still key to our success – didn\u2019t actually score<\/em> any of them. He must have been both very chuffed at the result, and a bit gutted not to be on the scoresheet. Speaking of which:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

England
J. Bellingham 35'
B. Saka 43', 62'
R. Sterling 45+1'
M. Rashford 71'
J. Grealish 90'

Iran
M. Taremi 65\u2019,90+13' (P)<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Taremi\u2019s first goal for Iran was superb. His second – a penalty – prob\u2019 shouldn\u2019t have been given. But you can\u2019t begrudge him or Iran their two goals, in the end. England\u2019s emphatic dominance and victory were still more than adequately reflected in the final result. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
How good was it to get off to such a good start!? Amazing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, amidst all the political controversy, it was lovely to note that Jack \u2018Calves\u2019 Grealish dedicated his goal (England\u2019s sixth of the match!) to a young fan:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Grealish meets Finlay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A celebratory move is agreed upon\u2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u2026 and, very sweetly, a promise is kept.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
BTW, the politics of the region once again made itself apparent: the Iranian players didn\u2019t <\/em>sing their own national anthem – which caused Gary Lineker to make the observation that it was \u2018a powerful and very significant gesture\u2019 – and there were protest placards in the crowd, with slogans such as \u2018Iranian women\u2019 (in ref\u2019 to the death in custody of Mahsa Amini<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On a lighter note, I met Miklas\u2019 pet rat (very cute!), and had a go on their Carlsbro e-kit. I was so drunk and the kit is set up for southpaw Chris\u2026 I could barely sit on the stool, never mind play!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I managed to get home early enough to catch the England Iran game yesterday. I missed the first ten minutes or so, and arrived back during what turned out to be a marathon time-out, due to the Iranian goal keeper bashing heads with one of his defenders. This wound up adding 14 or 15 minutes … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “SPORT: Football, World Cup \u201822 – Day 2, England vs Iran”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[89,73,94,148,70,93,150,81,74,122,149,117,147],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-1RJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7175"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7175"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11593,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7175\/revisions\/11593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}