The Principality of Andorra, which has fewer inhabitants than the new Asker, in addition to a banking system that is good at hiding money, clearly has a national team that can keep one of the world’s best national teams almost all the way home.
With a single goal from Bayern Munich’s star striker Harry Kane, England avoided becoming historic for all the wrong reasons against the football world’s answer to a mountain village.
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Roy Keane, the former Manchester United midfielder, had the following comment on ITV: “I don’t like the messages when one of your senior players says ‘it’s a job done, 1-0, we’ll take it'”. You should set your standards higher than that.
Harry Kane looked devastated at the end and it’s probably hotter than we think, but you still want a bit more with the quality they have.”
Matchup: England 1-0 Andorra
In what could have been football’s most embarrassing camping trip since Norway lost to the Faroe Islands, Harry Kane’s 72nd international goal made sure England didn’t have to explain how they managed to be held to a 0-0 draw by a team that has more mountains than professional footballers. – The 1 – 0 win is more embarrassing for England than Italy’s 3 – 0 loss to Norway at Ullevål yesterday.
Despite the victory, the English players were greeted by a symphony of whistleblowers from their own fans – a sound that was probably more well-organised than England’s attacking play.
The world ranking says it all
- Andorra: Ranked number 173 in the world just behind Sogndal 2.
- England: Number four (according to the same ranking that believes Belgium is still the world’s second best team) – Norway has climbed and is now up to place number 38.
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Tuchel’s consolation words
“We have to be better. That’s for sure. This is probably not a game many people will remember, unless they suffer from insomnia and need something to sleep on,” Kane told ITV with typical British understatement.
TV 2’s Haakon Thon was less diplomatic:
“It was like seeing a Rolls Royce get stuck in a ditch. Strictly speaking, they have not deserved more than this flute concerto. This doesn’t scare the waters off anyone – except maybe English bookmakers.”
Target moment
After 50 minutes of football that makes paint-drying seem like an X-game sport, the goal finally came:
- Kane shot
- The Andorra goalkeeper saved (shock!)
- The ball rolled out to Noni Madueke
- He sent in a pass
- Kane slid it in
- The whole of England sighed with relief
Away explanations
- Bukayo Saka out with “minor injury” (read: had seen footage from previous England-Andorra matches)
- Jordan Henderson got his first start since the Malta game in 2023 (another achievement that doesn’t exactly scream “forward-looking”)
In short: England took three points, but probably lost some bandwagon fans along the way. Next stop: A fateful away game against San Marino (FIFA ranking: 210 – right behind “Løkka Old Boys”).
England boss Thomas Tuchel told BBC Radio 5 Live:
“I felt that the frustration and lack of fighting spirit in the final stages of the game was evident, and I didn’t like that at all. I don’t want to create an atmosphere where we lose our temper too easily. I don’t know why we lost momentum and speed. The last 30 minutes were completely unacceptable. Everything is a learning process. We are smarter now than before the game, and we will talk honestly and directly about it to get better.
It surprised me, because we started well. We created an expected goal score (xG) of three, but only delivered one. It shows that we were not precise enough and lacked quality in the finishing.
This is our second collection, and we can do much better. That applies to me too. It takes two to tango, and we have to improve before Tuesday’s game. There are no excuses. There was too little aggressiveness in the duels, and then it will be as we saw – without the quality we want. There’s a lot to work on, and from there we’ll take it.”
Bonus comment:
Although Tuchel is trying to be diplomatic, it sounds like he would actually say: “This was so tame that I almost missed Gareth Southgate’s boring 5-3-2 system.”
