Fear and Loathing in Switzerland
Sarina Wiegman can go bigger than a moderate relaxant this time.
On Tuesday night, after the match had finished but before the terror had left my body, I thought of Hunter S Thompson's famous routine, an amusing (and likely fake) overview of the comestibles which accompany his writing process.
It culminates in this list, consumed between the hours of 12 midnight and 6am (when he does his best work): "Chartreuse, cocaine, grass, Chivas, coffee, Heineken, clove cigarettes, grapefruit, Dunhills, orange juice, gin, continuous pornographic movies."
Writers dream of this, perfecting the cocktail which primes them to speak their hearts as fluently as arise their rawest morning thoughts.
It came to mind as I was trudging back from the pub where I watched the Lionesses' semi-final, remembering what had made me feel the way I did — alive, flattened like pizza dough, as ready as I had ever been to sit down and write: one pint of Guinness, two of Neck Oil, one vegetable samosa, a few crumbs of my own fingernails and a thick slug of Michelle Agyemang.
With this coursing through my veins and hope of sleep distant, I attempted to relate this epic. The sharper journos will look for comparisons with a great moment from the annals of women's sport. But this epic wasn't Chloe Kelly v Germany. It wasn't Brandi Chastain v China, either. How many moments of the against-all-odds insanity which gives sport its unmatched entertainment value have happened in women's football?
'It's a miracle, it's a miracle,' that those dozens of horrifically wounded Italian players found enough energy to throw passionate gestures at referee Ivana Martincic on the rare occasions she failed to blow her whistle.
It is hard not to be reduced to tribalistic shouts of injustice in times like these, when the players who, by the natural order of things, ought to repay the hope you put in them come over all floppy and anxious.
In the first half, Esme Morgan was offered the chance to kapow an advancing Italian but chose to politely nick the ball, play it carefully to the nearest black shirt, instead. When England talked about a proper English performance, I'd taken 'proper' as an intensifier, as in 'proper good' — not as an adjective, as in 'a proper cup of tea'.
It would be too easy to say that prim England were being overrun by the passion of the Italians. The underdogs were organised, too, though the Lionesses hardly challenged as Italy made headed clearance after headed clearance, whittling down the final 45 minutes proper Englishly.
England were without defensive stability and anything close to the coherence that won them their last title. With 140+ sloggin' minutes on Friday night leaving Sarina Wiegman with only a couple of days with her recovered-just-about players, had she really spent them practising long corners for Lucy Bronze to head aimlessly back across the six-yard box?
More than ideas, the Lionesses lacked courage. Stealing into the box in extra time only to shoot wide, Chloe Kelly proposed one idea that the technically-gifted Lauren Hemp or Beth Mead could have performed an hour or so earlier, had they not been too frightened to try.
As a theme in my writing process, 'too frightened to try' is almost as tedious is those high crosses which the Lionesses loved chucking in each time they came close to Laura Giuliani's net.
Anyone who identifies as a nasty little perfectionist knows the anguish of a sub-par delivery, be it a soggy sentence, a typo, or settling for an adjective that tells only half of the feeling. In a short email it's painful enough. Writing about a passion like football is the perfect torture, since it's hard to imagine that a combination of whole-feeling adjectives could depict this muddle of emotions with a clarity I can be content with.
In times gone by, it has been simple enough to write about England being brilliant, again — even if they'd lost. On Tuesday, anxiety prevented me from finding patterns in England's performance, if there were any to be found. How do you line up words which reflect chaos, felt in a big way?
The world according to Hunter S Thompson must have been scary, if only an exact recipe of disinhibitors could give him the courage to represent it.
Games of football rarely last as long as 90+6 minutes, and it might have been shorter had the fourth official not taken due notice of the lengthy floor-rolling extensions to the game which Italy hoped would go unaccounted for. Was Michelle Agyemang's equaliser not, in its own way, another horrid prolongation? Do any of us want to experience the agony of another second half of England trailing, and would a trophy be a fair reward for its endurance?
One near miss looks just like that — a near miss, but with Agyemang's second second chance, England defined themselves anew. They're now a don't-bet-against-it side — hell, I would've betted against it for far more of the 90 than I had against Sweden, my optimism eroded as the Lionesses fired blank after blank.
Chloe Kelly also revised her self-definition as 'the rescuer', shooting a predictable penalty before putting away a seriously relaxed tap-in. If those endless, tedious crosses were too common a tale, Kelly's spot-kick was the Houdini kind of metamorphosis that wins tournaments — sending fans one way, then making them go 'ah' with the big reveal.
Maybe surprises are the key. What has made watching this team so enjoyable for the last four years has been the 'England, as usual' atmosphere which Wiegman has created. Each and every Lioness high fives each and every Lioness ahead of kick-off, then they'll put in their proper English performance, fight for each other 'til the last, then she'll give a tight-lipped summary in front of the cameras.
In this tournament, though, emotion is leaking through. Wiegman was jumping on her assistant Arjan Veurink in celebration. Cool-for-school Lauren James pumping the air after Sweden, Leah Williamson looking as scared as the rest of us after their opening game catastrophe. None of this is in the script, but they all seem to be enjoying the chaos.
“I am annoyed that we get ourselves into certain situations with miscommunications or not doing exactly what the plan says," captain Williamson said after squeaking past Italy. Then, almost with a laugh: "I don't how to explain it. I don't know how we do it.
"The level just keeps rising and there are more and more unknowns. You have to be ready for everything."
These are the conditions for an epic. At this tournament, twice as many knockout games have passed 90 minutes than the last, and nobody has sent anyone home with a 4-0 win, as England did against Sweden in 2022.
Nothing will take the edge off Kelly's scrappy winner against Germany in July 2022 — not even a huff on Hunter S Thompson's clove cigarette. But besides about 40 minutes against Spain, the Lionesses didn't have to fight in the summer of 2022. Their will to shrug off continuous, serious challenges to their Championship shows the edge of experience that Wiegman's players have over the field this summer — but it's a mark of how quickly the game is developing across Europe that experience appears to be the only edge that they have.
On Sunday, against World Champions that have already gone the distance, endured those same pressures, divots and curveballs, experience won't be enough. Like England, Spain didn't look too clicky in their semi-final, and you don't imagine that four days is enough time for either side to return to perfect.
Speaking after the Sweden comeback, Wiegman admitted she might indulge in "a small glass of something nice". Since letting go works for this England team, perhaps she can go bigger than a moderate relaxant this time.
Gin, grass, cocaine and grapefruit it is, then.