Benj Eckford

I joined the Labour Party in 2012, and the atmosphere has been like this 2012 to 2015: moribund, apathetic, lethargic, complacent 2015 to 19: energetic, fun, exciting, hopeful, inspiring 2019 to present: dour, joyless, nasty, spiteful, paranoid, hopeless

England fans: ‘my wife, she has been most vocal on the subject of the England goals. "Where are the England goals?" "When are you going to get the England goals?" "Why aren't you getting the goals now?" And so on. So, “where are the goals?”’

Thank you England. My nan’s been in a coma for 6 years, but England vs Panama was so boring she woke up just to turn it off

Cape Verde are NOT an advert for the expanded tournament They’d have done this with the old format too. They’re a proper, proper team Went through in 2nd place from the group stage Finished top of a qualifying group with Cameroon as well!

“Nobody could have seen Reece James getting injured” Reece James’ hamstrings after one sprint…

Head of failing Royal Mail sees his pay rise from 2.1 million to 6.9 million. That’ll go unnoticed by most, but when train drivers get a pay rise people are up in arms. What a pathetic country this is.

🇰🇵🇮🇹 In 1966, North Korea knocked Italy out of the World Cup. Italy’s excuse? North Korea secretly changed all 11 players at half-time and nobody noticed because “they all looked the same” 😭 FIFA never proved it, but Italians still treat it like VAR missed the biggest scandal in history. North Korea beat two-time champions Italy 1-0, then went 3-0 up against Portugal before Eusébio remembered he was Eusébio and ruined the fairytale. World Cup heritage.

“We keep getting ripped off building infrastructure” is not a good reason to give up. It’s a reason for radical reform. If we can’t learn how to build infrastructure efficiently, things are going to get a lot worse.

Football inflation is really getting out of hand. 🤯

England’s long-standing habit of taking half-fit players to major international football tournaments has always baffled me.

Panama v England is the World Cup’s only group-stage match where both countries have seen disastrous attempts at Scottish expansionism. Scotland tried to colonise what is now Panama in 1698 (Darien Scheme), but bankruptcy followed. Scotland invaded England in 1513, but King James IV was killed at the battle of Flodden. Stay tuned for more cutting-edge, geography(ish)-based World Cup analysis. (I hope my fellow Scots will forgive this painful trip into the past, but I couldn't find one geographic similarity between them.)

Trent Alexander-Arnold: “I’ll be back. You can’t keep Reece’s James’ hamstrings from exploding forever. And when one goes, I’m back in the squad, with all my long passes!”

Oh, no. I just made my last payment. #Simpsons

SCOTLAND. HERITAGE.

19 years ago today, Tony Blair left office as Prime Minister and was succeeded by Gordon Brown

Maybe the Europeans should have thought about all that back when they were colonizing Africa in the 19th century.

This isn’t a proper World Cup. A proper World Cup is when you turn the telly on and there’s non-stop matches between 12noon and 10pm. This 1am rubbish isn’t proper.

“No-one could see that coming.” Thomas Tuchel on Reece James’ injury. Except, unfortunately, everyone could see that coming. Frustrating in every sense. Picking James in the squad was understandable. Top full-back. But to have insufficient cover was naive. And then, following Tino Livramento’s injury (and he was a risk), not to call in Trent Alexander-Arnold, who was available, prepared and willing, but to call in a centre-back in Trevoh Chalobah, was bizarre. Tuchel is an exceptional head coach but his treatment of Alexander-Arnold and handling of the great right-back debate is perplexing. It’s a specialist position. Djed Spence can play right and Nico O’Reilly left. But then Tuchel is shoehorning centre-backs in at full-back. However willing (Konsa, Quansah) it’s not ideal. #ENG #FIFAWorldCup

Whenever John Major has the temerity to sneer at other politicians for making buses run more efficiently, or lecture us as if he is some sage on what needs to be done, just rewatch this. If only we’d have had PM John Smith and not PM John Major.

This commercial for the Revenge of the Sith tie-in video game has so much Mid-2000s sauce that it honestly only makes it look even cooler.

🚨 Uruguay has updated their flag