England’s football team has stopped pretending to play a sport and fully committed to avant-garde performance art. Each match is now a three-act drama where the plot twist arrives in the 67th minute, usually involving a defender who has forgotten which goal is theirs.
Spain showed up last week and played football like adults who had read the instruction manual. They passed the ball to teammates on purpose. They moved into space before receiving it. Revolutionary stuff. England, meanwhile, treated the pitch like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel written by someone who lost the plot halfway through. Every misplaced pass was a dramatic gasp-worthy moment. Every clearance a potential own goal waiting to happen. The crowd didn’t watch football—they watched a live-action thriller where the hero might accidentally score on themselves.
The chaos isn’t a bug anymore. It’s the feature. England has weaponized unpredictability to such an extent that even their own players don’t know what’s happening. This is genuinely innovative. Why execute a planned move when you can improvise a crisis and hope something good emerges from the wreckage?
But here’s the problem with turning football into reality television: Spain won. They won because they played like they’d attended training. Boring? Absolutely. Effective? Devastatingly so. Big tournaments require you to occasionally do things on purpose, which England treats as a personal insult to their creative vision.
The beautiful game doesn’t need more drama. It needs fewer plot holes.