As an England fan, this is traditionally the time in a tournament when you start to dream that the years of hurt might actually be coming to an end.

But with this manager in charge, I don’t think I’ll bother.

Roy Hodgson’s decision to rest half his team for the final group game against Slovakia was appalling and, as a result of not finishing top of their group, England now find themselves in the nightmarish side of the draw.

If England somehow overcome Iceland tomorrow, which is no easy feat as Austria, Hungary and Portugal can all testify, then it is probably France in the quarters and then Spain, Italy or Germany in the semis.

Of course, they say you need to beat the best if you want to be the best, and I can go along with that to a certain extent. But if the opportunity to play a few ‘average’ teams before you get to ‘the best’ comes along, surely you should grasp it with open arms.

But it’s not just Hodgson’s Slovakia miscalculation that has left belief thin on the ground. It is also the fact that he has no idea what his best formation, style or team is.

Some people have suggested he is making it up as he goes along. And I actually think that is true.

That’s not to say England have performed badly so far because they haven’t. But managing just three goals in a relatively easy group is hardly the sort of form that is going to strike fear into Icelandic hearts, let alone French, German, Italian or Spanish ones.

I sincerely hope everything clicks into place, starting tomorrow, and England storm their way to the final.

Unless he actually lifts the trophy, he should be shown the door

But I suspect we are just seeing definitive proof of what many of us have feared for a long time – Hodgson thinks he is a better manager than he actually is. Three tournaments and four years into the job, the very least he should know is how he wants his team to play and which players he wants in which positions.

The evidence suggests he isn’t certain of either.

FA chairman Greg Dyke has said reaching the semi-finals or an unfortunate defeat in the quarters would be sufficient to earn Hodgson a new deal.

I would suggest that unless he actually lifts the trophy, he should be shown the door.

There may not be many alternative candidates around, but the very least this current squad of players deserves is a manager who knows what he is doing.

Spain in the neck

Italy must be wondering if the football gods are having a laugh at their expense.

They storm to the top of their group, winning it with a game to spare but, instead of being rewarded with a relaxing tie in the round of 16, they get Spain.

The good news for Italian fans is that we now know Spain are beatable. The bad news for Italian fans is that in order to beat them you need to put them under pressure. Not Antonio Conte’s forte.

Essentially we have the tournament’s most fluid attacking force up against the tournament’s most resilient defenders. Tomorrow’s early kick-off is either going to be utterly fascinating or insanely dull.

Who will win? I’m not even going there.

Too many or too few

With the group phase out of the way what do we all think about the expansion to 24 teams then? In my opinion, it hasn’t really lived up to expectations.

I must confess I liked the idea of opening the tournament up to smaller teams and giving more countries the chance to join the party.

Unfortunately the opportunity cost of this has been quality, excitement and drama.

Back when countries knew that only the top two in a group would qualify for the knock-out phase, the majority of teams would approach each group game with a desire to win. You still had teams like Greece for whom defending was the new black, but most nations tried to play some football.

However, knowing three points in total might be enough to take them through to the round of 16, a painful amount of countries have now opted for the defend-with-11-players approach.

And this isn’t just the newbies, who might be forgiven for making a cautious start to tournament life; some of the more established nations have also decided defence is the best form of attack.

The situation did improve for the final group games, as you would expect with qualification at stake. But overall I wouldn’t call the 24-team finals a resounding success.

So what’s the solution? Well, there are two very obvious ones: go back to how things were before, or expand it even further.

The previous system of 16 teams wasn’t perfect, but at least it meant most games were competitive. True, only Europe’s elite made it through to the finals but, if you think about it seriously, that should be the whole point of a qualifying process anyway, shouldn’t it?

The other option is to expand the finals to 32 teams in eight groups of four, just like the World Cup. You would inevitably end up with two good teams and two mediocre ones in each group, but at least those lesser teams would know their only realistic chance of progressing would be winning matches, not drawing them.

My personal preference would be to turn back the clock and go back to 16 finalists. But the chances of Uefa even contemplating a move that would annoy so many of its members is non-existent.

So 32 teams it is. And, if we are honest with ourselves, that’s been Uefa’s long-term plan from the start.

Don’t Diego there

There’s nothing like a football anniversary to make you feel old. And boy, is that what I felt last Wednesday when I found out it was 30 years to the day since Diego Maradona scored the infamous Hand of God goal.

Although it has been three decades since that half-genius, half-cheat punched the ball over Peter Shilton’s head, I still remember that day with vivid clarity. I watched the game at a friend’s house and I recall the lonely walk home after the match, tear streaked cheeks, England flag dragging behind me on the dusty summer streets.

Although I had enjoyed the 1982 World Cup, 1986 was the first tournament I got fully immersed in. And that made the quarter-final defeat to Argentina my first experience of the sorrow involved in supporting England.

Of course, since then there have been many England-focussed disappointments on a variety of stages, in a variety of ways at a variety of tournaments. But like your first kiss, you never forget the first time supporting England leaves you with a broken heart.

And that day – June 22, 1986 – was mine.

Looking back on it now, the pain may have lessened but there is still one thing about the game that annoys me: everyone waxing lyrical about the brilliance of Maradona’s second goal. Yes it was a peach of a dribble, but I remain convinced to this very day that, had he not scored the first one, the second one would simply not have happened.

Think about it. The game had been pretty evenly balanced up to that point but then you concede a goal as a result of the most blatant bit of cheating you will ever see in a football match.

That is going to throw you. It is going to dent your confidence and destroy your concentration. The players Maradona went round for his second goal – Terry Butcher, Peter Reid, Terry Fenwick and Peter Beardsley – were all still in a state of disbelief. They couldn’t comprehend how none of the officials had spotted such obvious deception.

The ‘Goal of the Century’, which came just four minutes later, had little to do with his skill but a lot to do with the fact England were in collective shock. It’s like a boxer getting a lucky punch in and then following it with a knock-out blow while his opponent is still dazed. The latter wouldn’t have happened without the former.

I’m not denying that Maradona was one of the greatest players the sport has ever seen. But even now, 30 years later, nothing winds me up as much as people getting all moist over his second goal.

I will always give credit where it is due. But in Maradona’s case, in that particular game, there shouldn’t be any. And, if you bring the subject up again in 2046, my opinion will be exactly the same.

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com
Twitter: @maltablade