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| Hangover of defeat shows on grim faces of England players in Rio | Hangover of defeat shows on grim faces of England players in Rio |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| The worst possible sight the morning after is the debris of last night’s party. The hangover sits heavily on your head and in your mouth, and all those half-drunk glasses of wine spark pangs of regret, yes, but also embarrassment. How could you have been so blithely gleeful last night when you’re so clear-thinkingly miserable now? | The worst possible sight the morning after is the debris of last night’s party. The hangover sits heavily on your head and in your mouth, and all those half-drunk glasses of wine spark pangs of regret, yes, but also embarrassment. How could you have been so blithely gleeful last night when you’re so clear-thinkingly miserable now? |
| This was the inescapable sensation upon walking into the England training camp on Saturday morning, the day after Costa Rica trounced Italy and drop‑kicked the England team back across the Atlantic. It’s a gorgeous camp, no question, a repurposed military base next to Sugarloaf Mountain with its own luxurious little beach, and its grandeur, once no doubt seeking to elevate the team, now makes them look more full of hubris than ever. Military guards hover around but no one is carrying out security checks, because, really, no one carrying contraband is going to try to break into a dead duck’s camp. | |
| Outside the press centre, giant flags featuring the three lions blow sadly in the wind, like party streamers long after the party has ended. Inside – even worse! – are photos of the players in various triumphal poses as well as gigantic good luck messages from the car manufacturer Vauxhall. A good luck message from Vauxhall! And England still lost? There really is no helping them. | |
| Training grounds during a World Cup turn out to be a strange little bubble of a world. They’re like the sort of expat communities JG Ballard writes about: airless and sanitised pockets of a home country in a foreign land. At the bright and white England training centre in Rio, British TV is piped in and the only language heard is English. It is even referred to as “England”, so when your editor says: “Do you want to go to England tomorrow?” this does not, it turns out, mean: “Come home”; it means: “Go watch some sad footballers play ball tomorrow.” The football journalists who travel with the England team during these events must feel like they’ve barely left their home – until England get knocked out, that is, at which point they are turned loose in the country, blinking like moles as they emerge from the white and into the rainbow colours. | |
| Those journalists on this World Cup – still, for the moment, held hostage in the England camp – all marvelled at how easy it was to get a desk in the press centre on Saturday morning. Apparently the rest of the trip it had been two or three men deep – and it is, with a handful of exceptions, all men here – at the desks. On Saturday, tumbleweed blew past the banks of desks: those fair-weather foreigners had left the party. It was only the hardcore English left, long after the celebrations had ended, hungover, bleary and grumpy. So typical, so English. | Those journalists on this World Cup – still, for the moment, held hostage in the England camp – all marvelled at how easy it was to get a desk in the press centre on Saturday morning. Apparently the rest of the trip it had been two or three men deep – and it is, with a handful of exceptions, all men here – at the desks. On Saturday, tumbleweed blew past the banks of desks: those fair-weather foreigners had left the party. It was only the hardcore English left, long after the celebrations had ended, hungover, bleary and grumpy. So typical, so English. |
| Bang on 11, the journalists were ushered outside to watch England’s penultimate carefully staged training session. These sessions are a regular part of the World Cup and are as carefully choreographed as a Gene Kelly film but without the emotion. England’s training ground could not be more deluxe but the team could only grimace, still stuck in the foothills. | |
| A military boat that had been docked alongside the training ground for the past few weeks – rumoured to be part of the team’s security – was conspicuously gone. Not even the spies care about England now. | |
| Wayne Rooney, looking so much younger and so much less Shrek-ian in the flesh, listlessly kicked a ball about in his neon orange boots; Steven Gerrard, looking so much older, did some stretches; Joe Hart practised goalkeeping. Not a smile among them. | Wayne Rooney, looking so much younger and so much less Shrek-ian in the flesh, listlessly kicked a ball about in his neon orange boots; Steven Gerrard, looking so much older, did some stretches; Joe Hart practised goalkeeping. Not a smile among them. |
| Roy Hodgson strode about in his owlish way, hands clasped behind his back, sporting a badly fitting T-shirt and blue shorts, looking for all the world like a grandfather taking a leisurely stroll on a golf course. There was a brief burst of good cheer from him when he and Trevor Brooking larkishly kicked a ball about, but the key word there is brief. | Roy Hodgson strode about in his owlish way, hands clasped behind his back, sporting a badly fitting T-shirt and blue shorts, looking for all the world like a grandfather taking a leisurely stroll on a golf course. There was a brief burst of good cheer from him when he and Trevor Brooking larkishly kicked a ball about, but the key word there is brief. |
| Then, a stage-managed game among the players: “That’s the energy we’re after, Wazza!” Manchester United’s Tony Strudwick shouted like a diligent cheerleader. And then, they lost the ball and it rolled across the pitch and towards the press. We looked down at it, at a loss as to what to do. A helper came over to pick it up, and then it was all over. | Then, a stage-managed game among the players: “That’s the energy we’re after, Wazza!” Manchester United’s Tony Strudwick shouted like a diligent cheerleader. And then, they lost the ball and it rolled across the pitch and towards the press. We looked down at it, at a loss as to what to do. A helper came over to pick it up, and then it was all over. |