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He had us all fooled. Clean through on goal, with the opportunity to break his tournament duck, Cristiano Ronaldo caused stars to fall out of the sky as he squared for Bruno Fernandes to put Portugal 3-0 up against Turkey in Group F.

His former Manchester United teammate looked equally perplexed, hugging his country’s all-time top goalscorer especially tight, just to check it was really him.

Such a move was in-keeping with Ronaldo 4.0, who had this writer similarly convinced his latest incarnation was that of a team player, 39 years in the making.

In both of Portugal’s opening two group games, Ronaldo seemed fully aware that he no longer needed act like the alpha in such a multifaceted group. There were no tantrums, applause for teammates attempts to pick him out rather than death stares.

But we should all have known better. All it was going to take was one flashpoint to unleash those inner demons bursting to get out. And after his booking for dissent on the half-hour mark in the defeat to Georgia, Ronaldo plunged to new lows.

A water bottle got the brunt of his frustration as he was substituted, before he sat on the bench head in hands trying to quash the anger, having spent the rest of his time on the pitch in Gelsenkirchen gesticulating so much his limbs looked to be becoming detached from his body.

This wasn’t the Champions League final but a group game that had no bearing on Portugal’s progress to the last-16. The petulant Ronaldo of old, one damaging to those teammates around him, was back and more cantankerous than ever.

What makes Ronaldo getting up to his old tricks especially harmful is this is one of the greatest-ever Portuguese squads in history, one with more than enough quality in the ranks to bring the Iberian nation its second European Championship crown.

When Ronaldo was busy throwing toys out of the pram at every given opportunity in previous years, such frustration bore from the fact he was having to shoulder much of the goalscoring burden himself, and on the rare occasion when he didn’t fire, neither did Portugal.

With Liverpool’s Diogo Jota on one side of him in attack in Germany and AC Milan’s Rafael Leao, arguably Serie A’s brightest star, on the other, as well as one of the Premier League’s best creators, Fernandes, behind, Ronaldo had a role to play like any other central striker in any other team – a vital cog in the Portuguese attacking juggernaut. He seemed more than at home fulfilling such a requirement, too.

Those demons, however, were harder to suppress than we thought. Portugal coach Roberto Martinez will be more concerned than any going into Monday’s last-16 clash with Slovenia, as he is in danger of flattering to deceive with his second successive “golden generation”.

The Belgium you have seen limp through the group stages is one at the end of its cycle. There is young talent coming through, but not in great enough a number to replace their best-ever crop of elite superstars.

Martinez, however, had Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku, Vincent Kompany and Eden Hazard, among others, at the peak of their powers, a group who produced one of the most blistering World Cup displays in recent memory to defeat Brazil at the quarter-final stage in 2018, but the Catalan could not quite inspire them to a maiden major tournament crown.

The former Wigan and Everton boss has won widespread acclaim with how he reintegrated Ronaldo into the group after it appeared he was beyond the goalscoring phenomenon, following a dreadful 2022 World Cup and his move to Saudi Arabia.

There was no pandering to the ego. Ronaldo fit into Martinez’s system, no questions asked and a comfortable, tantrum-free Euro 2024 qualification campaign ensued.

Old habits die hard though. Now Martinez has a situation he must meet head on. How ever many selfie-hunters he may alienate, dropping Ronaldo has to be considered, given the myriad of attacking options available.

Few coaches have had the chutzpah to do that and Martinez is unlikely to buck the trend, but he has to do something to stop Ronaldo dragging this star-studded Portugal team down with him.

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On paper, it seems like a seismic shock. The might of Italy sent packing by Europe’s chocolatiers Switzerland, a first victory over the European Championship holders in 21 years achieved in as comprehensive a success as it gets in knockout tournament football.

In reality, what took to the field in Euro 2024’s opening knockout match in Berlin was not the Azzurri as we know it. There’s still talent in there, but confined to only a handful of players. Let’s remember: if it wasn’t for Mattia Zaccagni’s 98th minute equaliser against Croatia, Italy wouldn’t have even made it out of the group.

Italy’s conquerors in Berlin’s stunning Olympiastadion, however, ensured Zaccagni’s goal only granted a short stay of execution. From start to finish, Murat Yakin’s team controlled the ebb and flow of the encounter – something England have only managed sporadically all tournament.

And in their manager, Switzerland have a weapon to dampen English spirits, buoyed by a supposed “comfortable” route back to Berlin for next week’s final.

Yakin cuts an interesting figure on the touchline. His attire has made him something of an TikTok sensation, with his thick-rimmed glasses similar to Brains from Thunderbirds and slick-back hair contrasting his uber-casual dress sense. Think Mads Mikkelsen, but on a Sunday afternoon watching Netflix on his sofa.

On the pitch, his approach is very much the antithesis of “Mr Handbrake” Gareth Southgate. Coming into the tournament there were calls back home for Yakin, who had a mediocre managerial career before succeeding Swiss coaching legend Vladimir Petkovic in 2021, to be sacked following an underwhelming qualification campaign.

Such calls were ignored, but what they did create was a coach not afraid to roll the dice. While Southgate deliberates long into the night over making one like-for-like swap in his lineup, Yakin has made changes to his forwardline in each of his four games in Germany so far.

Three out of those four encounters saw Yakin deploy a different central striker. Meanwhile, Harry Kane will lead the line for England, even if he is on one leg.

Hungary coach Marco Rossi admitted after his side’s defeat to Switzerland in the group stage that he had been caught out by Yakin shuffling the deck, with Italian supremo Luciano Spalletti similarly having no answers in Berlin.

Yakin’s system is built on six immovable and experienced international footballing forces who provide the soundest of foundations for those rotating options further forward to roam free.

Veteran goalkeeper Yann Sommer – very adept in a penalty shootout – has Manchester City’s Manuel Akanji, Newcastle’s Fabian Schar and the evergreen Ricardo Rodriguez ahead of him. Granit Xhaka and Remo Freuler then sit in front to provide that additional protection. Italy did hit the woodwork, Schar almost heading comically into his own net, but otherwise, the super six could not be moved.

Xhaka is the orchestrator extraordinaire. The madcap former Arsenal midfielder made 25-line breaking passes against Italy, more than double that of any other player in the match, while only Toni Kroos has made more such passes in a game at Euro 2024.

His control allowed Freuler the opportunity to venture forward for the opening goal, safe in the knowledge even the brilliance of Nicolo Barella was no match for Xhaka after the mother of all seasons he has had over the other side of Germany.

Yakin knows he is not blessed with superstar talent in attack, hence why he is more willing to mix things up and give his attackers freedom to do as they please. Through the middle he has gone for Xherdan Shaqiri as a false 9 against Scotland, when he scored, Kwadwo Duah as a central option in a match he also scored in and the familiarity of Breel Embolo pulling defenders to one side with his clever runs.

The latter helped hammer the final nail in the coffin of Catenaccio Italian defending in Berlin. Yakin has taken more risks than most this summer, but so far in Germany, he can do no wrong.

“We’ll be able to watch tomorrow’s game live and something will come up in terms of the game plan,” Yakin said. “Everyone accepts their role in the team.

“We’ve shown we can control a game. If it’s England, one step at a time but we’ll have a chance against England.

The scenes of celebration on the final whistle all centred around a coach who is clearly popular with his players. With no superstar in the ranks, there is no preferential treatment afforded to anyone and it shows.

Quite what he has up his sleeve for a potential England quarter-final only Yakin knows. But expect something different to give a vibrant, together group every chance of another scalp.

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There have been and will be many problems for England manager Gareth Southgate to find solutions to during Euro 2024. Players getting injured, players’ partners giving birth, players falling off bikes.

It is all part of being England manager at a major tournament — one of the most pressurised and scrutinised jobs on the planet. Still, there is one issue emerging as perhaps more pertinent than all of the rest put together.

How does Southgate solve the conundrum of Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham? The relationship between England’s No 9 and No 10 has performed a deft but alarming disappearing act in Germany.

The only thing more surprising about the statistic that Kane and Bellingham, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid’s top-scorers last season, passed the ball to one another only once in the Slovenia game was that they had only shared one pass in the game before that, against Denmark, too. Kane rolling the ball to Bellingham in one game, and Bellingham rolling it back in the next, like the most drawn-out one-two ever.

It is an area that Southgate and his coaches have tried to address, but seemingly not to great effect.

Back at England’s training base in Blankenhain, before the final group game Kane and Bellingham watched analysis clips of the Denmark match to identify ways they could play more cohesively.

Kane said he is “always” talking with Bellingham about how they can improve and there is maybe no player you’d rather have as part of the duo responsible for fixing the issue than the captain who is now, at 30, one of the older heads in the squad.

“We would have liked to have played better and had more of a connection,” Kane said on the eve of England’s last-16 game against Slovakia. “But I still feel like the movements are there. We’re moving really well and I thought it was a lot better than the first two games.”

Kane has had various attacking partners for England over the years and he pointed out that his and Bellingham’s relationship is still fairly new.

“Even though we have played a bit together there’s still things we can both do better,” Kane said. “We’re hoping that as the tournament goes on we grow more and more.”

At the Qatar World Cup, Kane had Mason Mount behind him, but Mount was dropped after two games and Southgate went 4-3-3. In Euro 2020, Southgate switched between playing a similar formation to this tournament, with Mount mainly the No 10, or 3-4-3 — which they played in the final — with Kane expected to gel more with wider forwards.

You probably have to go back to 2018 and the Russia World Cup to find Kane’s most effective No 10 partner for England when he formed a near telepathic understanding with Dele Alli, his team-mate at Tottenham Hotspur. Those days feel a lifetime ago.

The Kane-Bellingham partnership may, of course, have been impacted by Bellingham’s shift towards the left in the Slovenia game — to allow Phil Foden more time in the middle.

And it may have been affected by Bellingham’s overall decline from scorer and player of the match in the opening game to a player some pundits have called to be dropped.

Whatever the reason, it is still bonkers that two of England’s most exciting attacking talents have failed to combine well together.

“It isn’t the end of the world,” Kane said. “I know things are being heightened and there will be a lot of talk, but that’s part and parcel of playing for England in a major tournament.

“Jude has dealt with that unbelievably well for his age. He’s dealt really well with going to Real Madrid for his age.

“So there’s no worries about Jude. He’s a great guy, he believes in himself 100 percent and from both of our points of view we want to go out there and start stepping up our levels.

“I feel we’ve been ruthless on the defensive side, in terms of blocks and blocking crosses and winning balls and now it’s down to me, the attacking players and maybe the midfielders to maybe be a bit more ruthless in the final third of the pitch.”

Southgate also pointed out that it is easy to forget how young Bellingham is, given how old he appears on the pitch.

The England manager was reminded of quite how young Bellingham is when the squad sang “Happy Birthday” to him (and Eberechi Eze, with whom he shares a birthday) on his 21st birthday during a team meeting ahead of training on Saturday.

“Because of his maturity and the impact he’s had, we expect so much of him but we are singing happy birthday to him and Eberechi and we are reminding ourselves that these are very young men,” Southgate said.

“We’ve got a lot of young players in the team and they are performing on one of the biggest stages in world football and there are inevitably going to be days when you hit the heights and days when you don’t quite hit those heights but he’s a top player and he is fully motivated for the game.”

If they could reach even a fraction of the heights they manage at their clubs, it would be a good start.

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Yankuba Minteh is set to undergo a medical tomorrow morning with Brighton after Newcastle agreed a deal worth in excess of £30million to ease their pressing Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) issues.

i revealed on Friday night that Brighton were closing in on a deal for Minteh and a fee of £33million with no buy-back has been agreed after a bizarre 24 hours in which it also emerged Newcastle have also approached Liverpool to propose a possible deal for Anthony Gordon.

Those talks did not progress with Newcastle always hopeful they would find a suitor for Minteh, the 19-year-old Gambia winger, to give them a solution to their PSR problems.

The club were understood to be risking a breach and potential points deduction without sales. Everton were hit with a ten point punishment last season, although it was later reduced to six.

As i reported on Friday, Brighton identified him in their transfer metrics as one of the most effective and promising right wingers in European football last season after his loan spell at Feyenoord. They believe his value could easily go on to top the £33million they have agreed to pay.

A medical is booked in the south coast for 11am on Sunday, which will mean a deal is done well in time for the ‘soft’ PSR deadline – the end of Premier League club’s accounting year – of June 30.

The transfer should go a long way to satisfying Newcastle’s PSR requirements although whether further deals are required to avoid a potential breach is uncertain due to the opaque nature of the rules and one Premier League source told i further deals remain ‘live prospects’.

The Magpies have said little about their PSR situation in recent weeks, although have spoken consistently about the need to player trade.

The potential Gordon deal proposed to Liverpool was understood to include England U21 defender Jarell Quansah, which put off the Reds. They are admirers of Gordon, however.

News of that and Newcastle’s late scramble to comply with PSR – rules Darren Eales insisted they would never breach in January – raise questions for the Magpies hierarchy.

Ironically they will be able to spend again from July as the accounting period starts again, with plenty of deals being worked on. The club have held talks with Nottingham Forest about winger Anthony Elanga and potentially selling Elliot Anderson although neither appears sold on that deal.

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England face Slovakia in Gelsenkirchen on Sunday for a place in the Euro 2024 quarter-finals.

This is a crucial last 16 clash for Gareth Southgate’s side after a disappointing group stage in which they scored just two goals.

England beat Serbia 1-0 in their opening game before drawing with Denmark and Slovenia to top Group C.

And they will be hoping from more from their star-studded attack, including Jude Bellingham, Harry Kane and Phil Foden, in their first knockout match in Germany.

What time does England vs Slovakia kick off?

England will play Slovakia at 5pm BST in Gelsenkirchen’s Veltins Arena.

The game will go to extra-time and penalties if there is no winner after normal time.

England vs Slovakia TV channel and live stream

England vs Slovakia will be aired on ITV1 and ITVX, with coverage starting at 3.30pm BST ahead of the 5pm kickoff.

Coverage will be hosted by Mark Pougatch, with Ian Wright, Gary Neville and Roy Keane likely featured as pundits.

England vs Slovakia team news and talking points

England’s biggest injury concern ahead is Kieran Trippier.

The Newcastle full-back trained with the group on Saturday but is reportedly an injury doubt due to an ongoing calf complaint.

Trippier has been starting out of position at left-back throughout the tournament in place of Luke Shaw.

Shaw is back to full fitness, but having not played since February, he still needs minutes off the bench, ideally behind Trippier.

But if the first and second-choice left-backs are both unavailable, Southgate is left with two right-footed centre-backs to deploy on the left – Joe Gomez and Ezri Konsa.

Gomez has played far more football this season on the left, but Southgate appears to prefer Konsa, starting him in the pre-tournament friendly against Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In central midfield, Manchester United midfielder Kobbie Mainoo appears set to replace Conor Gallagher alongside Declan Rice.

And further forward, Foden returned from the birth of his third child quickly enough to assume he will be able to start against Slovakia.

There has been a pronounced clamour for Newcastle winger Anthony Gordon to start ahead of Foden, who has struggled to make strong connections with the attacking players around him.

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There is no better seat at a major tournament than one sat directly next to an underperforming England team, protected on all four sides from the slings and arrows. It is usually a type: creative, technical midfielder, the solution to a stodgy attack; a young player, bright-eyed and fresh-faced; perceived X-factor.

There must always be one designated “clamour” player, the new national obsession who would absolutely, definitely, undoubtedly make everything better. This is subliminal emotional self-preservation, because one simple answer is easier to process than multitudinal layered tweaks. Jadon Sancho in 2021, Jack Grealish in 2022, Cole Palmer in 2024.

If Palmer in 2024 fits the brief more than most have, this is usually based upon what we know. Memories flicker back to the qualifying campaigns or glamour friendlies, when our chosen one changed the game or made any of the mess we’re now in possible.

Palmer is the opposite. England’s coaches have long been aware of the talent, Palmer picked for three different age-group teams and embedded within the St George’s Park system before starring in the Under-21s European Championship win last summer, but rarely before has a player bolted so far from the edge of England’s set-up to being a certain inclusion in a major tournament squad so quickly.

The rise since last August has been ludicrous by any reasonable standard. Before the start of 2023-24, Palmer had started three Premier League matches and two of those were dead rubbers after Manchester City had confirmed a title win. Our impression of him was blurry and half-formed, based on those fleeting glimpses of prodigious control that can prove misleading.

The move to Chelsea was widely mocked, remember, evidence of an unhinged club spending unhinged money on the final day of the transfer window just because they could, like the questionable sartorial choices you made in post-Christmas sale with newly acquired vouchers.

Palmer became the second most expensive uncapped Englishman in history after one competitive Premier League start. This wasn’t normal.

Nothing has been normal since either. In his first full domestic season, Palmer was the second highest Premier League goalscorer and provided the second most assists. Only two English players created more chances: Bukayo Saka and Morgan Gibbs-White. Chelsea were still a maelstrom; that prediction still held. But Palmer rose above our adage about young players needing positive working environments. He became their leader.

That is what now fuels the urge that Palmer can make a difference now. When a young sportsperson hits the ground running, we urge for infinite liberty: “just let them play” syndrome. Any roadblock risks stemming the progress and breaking the magic spell.

“You can see on social media what fans think,” Palmer said. “There’s loads of different teams people want to play, so it’s normal. It’s nice to see [people clamouring for me] but it’s not up to them, is it?

“Last season went a lot better than I expected. Obviously I believed what I could do anyway, but I didn’t think I would go there and have that sort of impact that fast.

“Personally I think [I’m ready to start] but it’s not up to me.”

With Palmer and England, it is an appealing prospect because magic is the ingredient that this campaign has so obviously lacked.

It does not matter that Palmer or Anthony Gordon may be inconsistent and unpredictable because England have been drowning in their own predictability. We are not asking nor expecting any replacement to be perfect. We are demanding that we cannot predict every pattern of attacking play and where it will fall down.

But it’s not that simple. Palmer’s problem is one of position. If the suggestion is that Southgate is crowbarring players into roles, it’s instructive that Palmer insisted that his best position is wide right (he studied Riyad Mahrez, watching YouTube compilation videos before matches).

To start in this team, then, you must drop Saka, England’s Player of the Year in each of the last two seasons. Everybody’s preferred England XI has 13 or 14 players with nobody getting dropped.

It may not happen for Palmer in Germany as a result. This is not a slight on anyone: him, Southgate, those ahead of him in the queue. It is merely a question of timing and circumstance, of England being blessed in certain areas and a team curated when he was barely even a Premier League player.

Still, he has time on his side and he is getting used to major tournament disappointment. Palmer’s first England memory is of Frank Lampard’s ghost goal against Germany in 2010. His first World Cup was in Brazil, when he went to stay with his grandfather who lives there, and by the time he had arrived England had already been eliminated from the group stage. Things can only get better from there.

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Brighton are set to advance their interest in Newcastle United winger Yankuba Minteh, with the Magpies forced to broker sales before the so-called Profitability and Sustainability rules (PSR) deadline at the end of the month.

19-year-old Minteh has interest from Everton, Borussia Dortmund and Lyon but i understands that Brighton have held further talks with Newcastle over a £30m deal for the winger.

i has been told that Minteh – who was on holiday with his family earlier this week – is “relaxed” about his future but would prefer to remain in the Premier League, so a move to Brighton would likely appeal.

The Seagulls have a record of buying well and Minteh is understood to have shown up well on their transfer metrics after a successful loan spell at Feyenoord last season.

That performance had raised hopes that Newcastle would be able to integrate him into their first team squad but their PSR situation requires them to sell players to avoid a breach of the allowable loss limits over a rolling three-year cycle.

Several of their first team players are up for sale but it is Minteh who has attracted the most interest.

Everton are also keen but a proposal involving Dominic Calvert-Lewin was sunk earlier this week because the two clubs were far apart on their valuations of the players.

Any deal with Brighton would likely not include a buy-back clause, which is something Newcastle fans have been pinning their hopes on.

Friday night brought further reports of Chelsea holding dialogue over star striker Alexander Isak but Newcastle do not want to sell the Sweden striker, who has reaffirmed his commitment to the club twice this year.

Newcastle want to tie Isak down to a new contract but their PSR situation has encouraged clubs to enquire about their star men.

If they do sell Minteh it would, at least, ease concerns about that possibility.

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The head of refereeing at Euro 2024 has admitted that English officials took too long over a VAR decision during the Netherlands’ draw with France.

In one of the few controversial refereeing decisions in the tournament so far, referee Anthony Taylor and VAR Stuart Attwell checked whether Netherlands full-back Denzel Dumfries, who was in an offside position, had prevented France goalkeeper Mike Maignan from diving to save a shot from Xavi Simons that went in.

After several minutes Attwell determined that Dumfries had impeded the dive and confirmed the on-field decision made by Taylor.

Netherlands manager Ronald Koeman, however, was furious with the decision.

“If it’s offside, then you don’t need to spend five minutes touching your ear,” Koeman said.

“I don’t understand this. If you have this much doubt, you give a goal!”

While believing it to be a correct decision, France manager Didier Deschamps agreed it had taken too long.

Uefa’s managing director of referees Roberto Rosetti said: “We can improve because we have also to find elements of improvement — and there are always elements for improvement.

“I guess I think in this situation the element of improvement is the duration of this review.

“For sure the duration can be less. We can decrease the duration of the review.”

But the Italian insisted that the call was “not easy” in such a high-pressure environment.

“In this situation the VAR checked two possible offsides, then he had to check also the possible impact of the attacker on the goalkeeper, and then he checked also possible previous contact between the players,” Rosetti said.

“Then we can add that we at the Euro, the pressure is the pressure, and of course we always accuracy, of course working on the speed of the duration of reviews. But at the end the decision is totally correct.”

This is Virgil van Dijk on 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 disallowed Dutch goal #EURO2024 pic.twitter.com/7c3BrCWvfX

— Optus Sport (@OptusSport) June 21, 2024

In audio of the decision, heard by i, after Taylor initially rules the goal out for offside Atwell says: “Goal possible offside. I just wanna see the offside first. Delay, delay, I’m going to check the offside.

“He’s impacting the goalkeeper’s ability to make a full dive. You can make an argument based on these pictures that the goalkeeper isn’t able to make a full dive.

“No intervention. Tayls, Tayls confirm on-field decision of offside. Confirm on-field decision of offside. Check is complete.”

Rosetti added: “Listening to the conversation between Anthony Taylor and Stuart Attwell, I think it’s very clear why they took the final decision.

“First point, the decision was taken in the pitch, so the referee saw the geographic position of offside of the player.

“He communicated with his assistant referee and then he evaluated the possible impact on the attacker on the goalkeeper. So the impact is another key element to define this final decision.

“Another key element you can easily understand is also the trajectory of the ball and the possibility of the goalkeeper to make the save.

“At the end the decision was offside, because the attacker was impacting on the goalkeeper.

“The Uefa referee committee totally supported the decision. We think the decision is right. And we are happy about the process.”

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Upset. Annoyed. Baffled. Those were the words Clive Tyldesley chose to delineate his anger and confusion after being relieved of ITV’s senior football commentator position in 2020. Four years later, they pretty accurately reflect the feelings of thousands about Saturday’s match between Germany and Denmark being among Tyldesley’s last on British television, and certainly his last on ITV. The voice of multiple footballing generations is signing off with a nondescript second-round tie.

For the past fortnight, Tyldesley has repeatedly proven he remains at the apex of his craft; funny without descending into “banter”, well-informed and well-educated without being patronising, increasingly bathed in a sun-kissed comfort born of his breadth of experience. Two months from his 70th birthday, he only appears to be falling further in love with football.

It’s an infectious, childlike love; love which reminds you why you’re watching Georgia vs Portugal on a Wednesday evening, love he is not only desperate to share but masterfully skilled at doing so. His public upset at first losing his senior position and now his ITV contract only proves how much he believes he has left to give, even after 28 years with the broadcaster. It’s incredibly difficult to disagree with him.

Aided by the hallmark of late-era Tyldesley – the partnership with Ally McCoist – his handling of Georgia’s first major tournament win was virtuoso. The pair have a fair claim at being the best current commentator/ co-commentator duo working – genuine friendship connecting two legends of their industry.

“It really became a partnership at the last Euros,” Tyldesley said of his relationship with McCoist on a recent episode of The Football Authorities podcast. “We’ve known each other for years. He’s absolutely everything you’d expect him to be, but he’s also got heavyweight opinions on the game.

“I love his company, I love his company on the air and it’s nice when people enjoy it, but as I say, it’s not our decision to make.”

Alongside McCoist, Tyldesley has excelled alongside Andros Townsend, another co-comm who shares his assiduous approach to pre-match preparation and genuine love for football.

It’s worth stressing this is not a column about who ITV’s first-choice voice or pairing should be. Replacing Tyldesley with Sam Matterface four years ago was unpopular then and still is now, but Matterface is ever-improving and gradually relaxing into his role.

But there should be no such respite for Lee Dixon, increasingly your football-hating uncle who’s only come to watch the England game because there’s free beer and he’s been lonely since Carol left. Dixon is not just uninteresting but uninformed, not so much charmingly pessimistic as a vacuum of joy or insight.

This was never clearer than 75 minutes into England vs Slovenia, when 36-year-old Josip Ilicic emerged on the sidelines to enter a Euro 2024 pitch for the first time.

Now, not only is Ilicic among the three biggest names in Slovenia’s squad having played for Fiorentina and Atalanta, well-publicised mental health issues almost forced him to retire. This was a triumphant moment, one which deserved scripting by Dickens. Instead we got Dixon grousing: “Who? How old? He looks older than me.”

The biggest criticism you can make of Dixon, or Martin Keown, or Danny Murphy – that they appear to actively dislike football – only highlights the significance and value of the unaffected joy which makes Tyldesley quite so admirable.

Unlike radio, TV commentary isn’t so much an exercise in translating moments as it is adding the finishing brushstrokes to history, informing and entertaining without becoming the entertainment. You are both in someone’s living room and in their hearts and minds, providing the artistic flourishes for their memories. You are so often the soundtrack to happiness.

And you only had to watch the Georgia game to appreciate how well Tyldesley handles this oratorical tightrope. His is a V8 voice which purrs through its gears as though driven by God, finding rasping octaves you didn’t know it had, even at 69.

Aside from his famously thorough research and light humour, Tyldesley’s voice remains his greatest gift. It now preserves nearly 30 years of nostalgia, generations who grew up subconsciously associating that squealing rasp with the defining moments of their footballing educations, to whom hearing Tyldesley speak now comforts and swaddles.

Close your eyes and he can still teleport you to Champions League weeknights spent with long-lost friends and lovers, to the first time you saw Zinedine Zidane, to days when football felt purer, holier, better. This is what great commentary should do. Clive never lost respect for that.

He can still use a brief pause like a stunted penalty run-up, teeing up his audience with an effortless, imperceptible millisecond’s silence. He took a stance against gambling advertising to step away from his role at TalkSport and wrote to the PFA advocating training for co-commentators after a study found racist comments were prevalent on air. He not only moved with the times but embraced them, which makes ITV’s decision even more bizarre. Not for me, Clive.

So thank you to the soundtrack of my footballing childhood, to the titan who gave us “Can Manchester United score? They always score” and “Remember the name – Wayne Rooney”. Thank you to a rare man who understands both the power of precise language and of well-utilised silence, and came to master both. Thanks Clive.

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The scene is the Leonardo Hotel in the south of Frankfurt on a sweltering Thursday in the city.

England are in town and so too is the whole circus that trails them. In the lobby as fans mill around nursing ice cold pre-match beers there is a man with a camera filming Gareth Southgate lookalike Neil Rowe, a middle-aged pilot wearing a waistcoat and blue suit, as he interacts awkwardly with OnlyFans models Astrid Wett and Leah Ray.

There’s some vaguely suggestive stuff about Bukayo Saka and then the girls present him with some flowers. A little while later she tweets excitedly about the encounter in block capitals: “WE FOUND THE PLAYERS HOTEL”. It gets 315,000 views.

Wett, a Chelsea fan, has nearly a quarter of a million followers on X (formerly known as Twitter), and a staggering 1.6m on TikTok. More importantly here, she has prized tickets for the Denmark match – and every other Group C game – which has been getting some England fans unable to get a seat in the stadium hot under the collar.

They are not alone. Last week Mo Salah’s agent Ramy Abbas Issa asked on X: “Why do ‘influencers’ who became famous by making silly faces and being irritating get better access at sporting events than real fans do? Says alot about the celebrities who entertain them”. He followed it with the hashtage “StopMakingIdiotsFamous”.

The collision of these two worlds has become particularly pronounced in recent months. YouTuber IShowSpeed – a 19-year-old American Cristiano Ronaldo superfan called Darren Watkins Junior who boasts 25.4m subscribers and has become famous partly for his exuberant reaction videos – made it into Manchester United’s FA Cup celebrations last month after an invite from winger Alejandro Garnacho.

Not everyone was happy but the videos went viral globally, attracting millions of eyeballs. So what is happening here? And is “real fan” anger justified?

Harry Hugo, the founder of the influencer marketing agency GOAT, says the rage is misplaced.

“Fans who are complaining about that probably don’t understand that all these are is corporate tickets that previously would have gone to men in suits,” he tells i.

“They’re not new tickets set aside for influencers. These are corporate tickets that are part of big sponsorship deals, which previously would have gone to the classic prawn sandwich brigade.

“Influencers might not be the most popular with the everyday match-going fan maybe but they are a fan. It’s a step up from having a man in a suit there. The allocation of corporate tickets has gone up but that’s just a product of the world we live in and the importance of sponsorship in sport now.”

Anyone who regards these YouTubers as a bunch of amateurs filming themselves being silly in their bedrooms probably needs to rethink the industry.

Influencers represent a growing slice of the football marketing space, and it’s a multimillion-pound business now. They’re seen as a key way of “connecting” to Gen-Z fans, although Hugo says the idea they appeal solely to teenagers is a misunderstanding.

One thing is clear: it certainly is big business. Paddy Power chartered a plane to fly influencers and media movers and shakers out to Germany for England’s first game in Gelsenkirchen, although i understands their original idea of turning the livery green proved too difficult.

Meanwhile, Pepsi’s operation to get influencers to the Champions League final was so complex they even created an app to make sure their travel and hospitality plans went smoothly.

“Brands spend millions and millions of dollars on the association with these different things – be it the Champions League, Premier League, the Euros – so they’re prepared to spend additional advertising dollars to make people aware they are part of it,” Hugo says.

“Getting the word out there is critical and influencers are a huge part of that.”

He puts the surge of influencers in stadiums down to a couple of things: firstly sponsors looking for “authentic” voices that can connect with potential customers.

And also – he says – many are churning out high quality content. Hugo cites ChrisMD – one of the YouTubers he has worked with on campaigns – who has a team of 10 and creates regular football videos for his 5m followers.

“These are ‘legacy creators’ who have been on the platform for 5-10 years and have done well for themselves so they aren’t chasing the money,” he says.

“They are doing genuine net positive things for their audience, they’re bright young entrepreneurs, they’re not chancing tickets for the Champions League final.”

He’s right. i speaks to influencer George Mortimer, who posts as StokeyyG2, from Germany, where he’s enjoying the Euros.

A bright, friendly teenager from Stoke, he has amassed a following of over 400,000 followers on X after starting out posting “mostly because I was bored during lockdown”.

He has got a brand deal with online banking app VibePay and tickets for every England game this summer, though he stresses he paid for them out of his own pocket and was going to cheer on his country before the agreement was signed.

His videos of the match-going experience in Germany – the train hassles, super-strength beers, stadiums and big moments fans are experiencing – are doing well but he knows the importance of going viral. So he will watch every game, along with employing someone to help him, ready to press send on anything that could chime with fellow X users.

“You have to be on the ball. You have to be there watching the games,” he explains.

“The goal is to be there, be the first person to do it or notice it or say it. If people realise you’re the first then they’ll keep looking at you basically.

“My following really took off during the Qatar World Cup. That was when I realised basically you’re on a platform that the whole world is watching.”

It couldn’t be ANY EASIER for us…

Football is OFFICIALLY coming home. pic.twitter.com/nmXe0Tf2HR

— george (@StokeyyG2) June 26, 2024

It is, he says, a “viable” career and while he does experience some negativity on the platform he says it’s drowned out by people who like what he is doing. While followers only see his videos, downtime is often spent responding to businesses keen to work with him or answering queries from fans. It’s a proper full-time job that earns enough for it to be a living.

“You make a bit through Twitter but not enough to sustain it as a full-time job really,” he says.

“The rest usually comes through promotions, brands reaching out to you. I’m lucky enough to have VibePay. I will promote their promote their brand, they give me money for that. They want to get people aware of the brand, ultimately getting people to sign up.

“For me it’s really important that it’s a brand that will appeal to my audience. I’ve had other offers but they wouldn’t really connect with my audience.”

Hugo says good influencers can make “tens of thousands of pounds” per post. His agency has a decade of data and monitor metrics to make sure the message – and influencer – land.

Their most high-profile campaign was a three-year commission from the Qatari tourist board tag lined “surprise and delight”, which was aimed at challenging preconceptions about the World Cup hosts. But they’ve also done noteworthy work with Uefa to rebrand the Europa League to a younger audience.

While not everyone approves or follows some of the riskier content out there during the Euros, ultimately influencers only thrive if they can connect to an audience.

“With all advertising, all media, we all have opinions on what works and what doesn’t. Not everything lands,” Hugo says.

“The problem influencers have is they get tarnished with the same brush. In TV we think about the great adverts, we don’t think about the crap.

“With influencers you sometimes think about the s**t ones, not the ones who have built up audiences for years, have millions of followers and inspire them week after week.

“Of course there are other people that have lucked into this job and don’t deserve as much of the attention but attention is the currency.

“If that’s an OnlyFans model with a million followers then they have attention and brands have the opportunity to tap into it.

“Whether they do that is up the brands’ discretion.”

The message is clear: influencers and football is only going to get bigger at future tournaments.

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ERFURT — The failure – temporary or permanent, gradual or quick, superstar or semi-pro – of a young player is almost always one of two things: a) not a failure at all, merely a readjustment, and b) a failure of something else entirely. Coaching, guidance, environment all wrestle to be most significant, and all fail. Hype usually wins.

We build them up to break them down; the epitaph on England careers past, present and surely future too. There will be those who blame the media, but we all share guilt because our crimes are always inadvertent and well-meaning. Young players offer a dopamine hit of raw escapism. Every time they do something magnificent we ask only one question: how much more magnificent might they be?

Which brings us to Jude Bellingham at Euro 2024. In the first half of England’s first match against Serbia, Bellingham produced the most astounding individual major tournament performance for England since Wayne Rooney against Croatia 20 years before.

Bellingham did everything and did everything well, the one-man band who dribbled, tackled, created and scored. He was hailed as everything for England that we had already spent the last two years hailing him as for Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid. He was our Diego Maradona ‘86, our Michel Platini ‘84. He was compared to Cristiano Ronaldo in one English newspaper.

So it’s with some degree of revelation that we arrive at 28 June Jude Bellingham and learn that all is not well. Bellingham has had one shot at Euro 2024 – the goal. He has created one chance, the same number of Anthony Gordon. Gordon has played a single minute in Germany.

The temptation for England’s angry football public, naturally, is to blame Gareth Southgate for all of this. You have to play him deeper, you buffoon. But then that would be completely different to the area of the pitch where Bellingham has operated all season and where he ranked first in La Liga for goals, shots on target, touches in the box and possession won in the final third.

And were this a case of faded influence, explanation would be easier and so too would the blame upon the manager. But that’s not really it.

Bellingham has attempted more passes than any other attacking England player. He has had 77 touches of the ball in the final third of the pitch, 13 more than any other England player. Instead, two options: Bellingham is just playing the pass that leads to the definitive action, the assistant to the assistant (I don’t think it’s that) or Bellingham is playing badly (I think it’s that).

Most likely, Bellingham is goosed. He’s played lots of games this season. He’s played lots of games in total, an obscene number for someone so young.

He played a Champions League final and then, two weeks later, played in the first of potentially seven matches at a major tournament. In an interview with Lion’s Den, a YouTube show from the England camp, Bellingham described himself as “absolutely dead” at the end of the Slovenia match. That’s not just honesty; it’s a cry for help.

Bellingham suffers from this most because he is, like all of those greats he has been compared to, a bellwether player. He is all or nothing because he is a magnet for the ball and the cameras. It’ll either go very badly or very well but it’ll never go quietly.

In his Real Madrid unveiling, Bellingham said “I feel like I’m a midfielder that can do a little bit of everything” and only two words of that was a lie.

You can forgive Bellingham for wanting to carry the moon and the sun and the stars on his back simultaneously, because that is his comfort zone. He does not flinch in the face of responsibility, because neither did any of the other players he so wishes to emulate. That’s how you become the top league goalscorer for Borussia Dortmund and then Real Madrid in consecutive seasons as a midfielder.

In hindsight, it was interesting to hear Southgate discuss Bellingham after that Serbia match, and the manager’s claim that he tried to squeeze 90 minutes of running into 45. It was said with – and provoked – a laugh, but within that assessment was great truth and great meaning. Southgate was right: Bellingham played at double speed.

Let’s go back to our original assessment and flip it: you can’t keep doing everything and doing everything well forever. The greatest are not the greatest all the time. They are the greatest because they possess an unerring ability to squeeze their best into the moments that matter. They are champions of efficiency.

We must not overreact here, for that would be to make the same mistake twice. Flipping between different slants of hyperbole creates an uneven stage on which to perform. Bellingham’s talent is not a trick of the mind. He was not our king after Serbia anymore than he is a pauper after Slovenia.

But England’s need is to remove the extremity of the Bellingham experience, to reduce him as the bellwether, the ordained master of all trades. Seeing him drive deep and wide and central and high up the pitch in the same minute is fun for a while, but unsustainable in a major tournament played in summer heat.

There are options: change of role, change of position, rested for a game, moved to the status of “finisher” over “starter”, as per Southgate’s own terminology. All may have their merits, although it would be hugely bold to drop Bellingham for a knockout match (for that is how it would be sold).

But really, the answer is more simple. Stop all your fretting; stop making him the protagonist; stop him being part of a leadership group at 20; stop writing the newspaper columns about what is wrong – ah well, too late. Just let Bellingham be and see what happens. We’ll all be better for the experience.

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