Men vs Pumpkins

When a reporter asked Sarina Wiegman whether her side lacked mental resilience in their 4-0 defeat by Spain, she notably paused before answering.

Earlier in their World Cup qualifying campaign, the brand that England had built through a series of comebacks at EURO 2025 was on display again when they squeaked through a 1-0 win over Iceland; the Lionesses are still a team who get the job done.

Against Spain on Friday, though, they looked like a team who had failed to clock in or even begun assembling their resume for the task of pursuing the biggest trophy in international football.

"Well, I just think... if I bring it back to how we played, we just didn't play good enough," she said. Wiegman is the master of steering a conversation away from criticism of her players - but this diversion was more conspicuous than most.

To put a positive spin on an abysmal performance was challenging, to deny that the performance had turned from not brilliant to abysmal in the moment that Spain scored their first goal was impossible.

There were no warnings about horrid this game would be. Everyone knew it would be a tight battle between Europe's two great powers - but before kick off, Ella Toone was larking around with mascots in the tunnel, Sarina dressed casually in a powder-blue top with mid-length sleeves.

At the start, England worked together to press Spain and Lauren James's defensive work drew the eye. Keira Walsh even had a shot which she sent over the bar. I would've savoured it more had I known it would be the most hopeful thing to happen all evening.

Do you remember who scored the winner on the day that England survived a knockout scare to beat Spain at EURO 2022? Yes, it was Georgia Stanway. She received the ball not far beyond the centre circle, ran and ran unchallenged, said 'okay' then struck it in from 18 yards.

It probably felt good for Spain fans, then, that the precise moment when England fell apart altogether came at the expense of Stanway's ego.

I'm still haunted by my dad's words, 'don't dive in!!', called insistently from the touchline when I played football as a kid. He was right, but I hated it because when you see an opponent threatening with the ball at their feet, all you want is to be the guy that puts a stop to it.

For Stanway, a successful dive-in would've been an act of kindness towards Lucy Bronze, who had attempted to offload the ball to Ella Toone in a bit of a panic, with red shirts swarming - only to watch Patri Guijarro swipe it and run forward with intent.

Wiegman's players have been models of composure in times when the pressure has been close to unbearable for everyone else involved - Wiegman herself agitated on the sidelines, fans with brown pants on their sofas at home.

But as she attempted to prevent Guijarro, Stanway showed all the composure of a herd of rail passengers surging for their platform. And reader, the Spaniard made light work of the onrushing bull, kicking the ball through her legs before charging on goal and scoring.

(Again, had I known then that this would be only one of many deeply embarrassing things to happen during this game, I would have at least tried to hate it less.)

Though it might stem from my own aversion to the ugly reality, my instinct says that when a performance is that bad, there's not much to learn from inspecting the match blow by blow. So I will summarise what I deem the match's other most embarrassing moments to give those who missed it a sense of how grateful they should be that they did:

• Hannah Hampton booting the ball out of play from her hands for no reason whatsoever
• Esme Morgan passing back to Hampton with such uncalled-for vigour that she concedes a corner - thank you, ineffective linesman, for sparing her blushes by failing to award it
• Alex Greenwood's bun playing Alexia Putellas about a yard onside for the second goal
• Putellas poking the ball in after Bronze cleared it off the line - even though Greenwood had been comfortably first to the rebound?!????
• Aitana Bonmati assist within four minutes of coming off the bench (which Spain manager Sonia Bermudez celebrates by laughing, presumably at how bad England are and how good the World Cup defence will look on her CV)

And I think those last two points about sum it up for me. The 'good' news is that I can reasonably write this disaster off as having been caused by some cruel, senseless curse. The bad news is that Spain were even more good than England were bad - and England were so bad.

Spain were brilliant to the extent that I was almost enjoying watching them flourish, almost willing little Vicky Lopez with her big talent for tricky feet to score the goal she deserved. How twisted.

Wiegman is criticised by fans for making changes too late and sticking with her favourite players. But Beth Mead and Chloe Kelly were each as sloppy as the starting eleven when they were brought in to improve things on 60 minutes and so I have no choice but to conclude - curse, and Wiegman can (still) do no wrong.

It was just a one-off thing which says nothing about the real future of this team and, obviously, Spain themselves will turn back into pumpkins at midnight and we can all rub along together nicely in Brazil next summer - back to our competitive, well-matched selves!!! Sounds good, doesn't it??