Football’s still the big boy in the playground – even when the big boys aren’t playing

It’s been a long, hot, soccerless holiday. There has been football about — the women’s European Championship, for example, and various age-group tournaments, all of which England departed with undue haste — but not the proper stuff. There hasn’t been a tournament where players can ‘put themselves in the shop window’ or prove that they have what it takes ‘at the highest level’ for any club with a fat chequebook and a friendly press.

Youth football, even women’s, is all very well but it doesn’t pay the bills. Men’s professional football is, sadly, the big kid in the playground of sport. When it’s not there we miss it and make up for its absence by talking about it like kids in the run-up to Christmas with a long wishlist who see no reason why we can’t have it all.