Half an hour of hurt, whinging Spain and the danger of going Full Jingo

Oof. Is that the time? Just give us a minute, will you. The Fiver celebrated a bit too hard last night. When Ella Toone’s equaliser hit the back of the net to emphatically end 30 minutes of hurt, we jumped up so fast our head cracked the low ceiling of our single-room pied-à-terre. When Georgia Stanway lashed home that extra-time winner, Weird Uncle Fiver clobbered us with our own Ellen White cardboard cutout. Looks like we’ve got The Fever again, and who can blame us? England’s indomitable Lionesses are in the Euro 2022 semi-finals!

With 83 minutes gone, the jig appeared to be up. Spain led 1-0, caressing the ball effortlessly around midfield; Sarina Wiegman had hooked White, Beth Mead and Fran Kirby, and thrown on the youngsters. But then the game was swung by the hands of fate – and the arms of Alessia Russo. Spain’s Irene Paredes felt she was impeded by the Manchester United forward as she flicked on for clubmate Toone to score, but she had the good grace not to complain bitterly about it afterwards. What’s that? Oh. “I can’t jump because she hits me with her elbow on the neck, a clear foul that [the referee] doesn’t want to whistle or review, and that decides the match,” Paredes fumed.

If you were in her shoes, you might feel hard done by too, but The Fiver has some notes. 1) The goal did not decide the match; 2) Paredes didn’t help her cause by appealing for a foul with the ball in mid-air; 3) the increasingly defensive tactics employed by the Spanish Southgate, Jorge Vilda, were equally to blame. Oh, and 4), what’s wrong with a bit of old-fashioned centre-forward play? Don’t like it up ‘em, these! Sorry. Maybe, it’s these St George Cross sunnies, but The Fiver is at risk of going Full Jingo: berating opposing