What did Leroy Sane do to deserve this?

Hello, and welcome back to Tactically Naive, our weekly look at the last seven days in soccer. Today we’re sponsored by Gareth Southgate’s waistcoat and Roberto Martinez’s natty brown shoes. And we are looking good.

First we’ll check your pulse. Hmm. Thank you. A little quick. And you said you’d been feeling a little warm, and “kind of agitated, unable to concentrate”? Yes, that makes sense. And the bloodwork confirms it. You, dear reader, have got:

WORLD!

CUP!!

FEVER!!!

Don’t worry, it’s perfectly harmless. But there will be some other odd symptoms coming your way. You may start to take a genuine interest in international friendlies. You may surprise yourself with how strongly you disagree with Jogi Low over his job. You may even begin to get really giddy, as you persuade yourself that England only need a little bit of luck to make a real imp— wait, are you feeling okay?

Nurse! Nurse! The patient’s started babbling about Gareth Southgate’s attacking options from the bench! The screens!

Before we get into this section, a quick reminder of the rules governing warm-up friendlies. If the result is good, then the result matters, it was great to get a win, everybody’s very happy. If the result is bad, then the result is meaningless, and what matters was that everybody got a run out and had a chance to work on some combinations. So keep that in mind, as we take a look at which of the tournament favourites are stumbling ahead of the tournament.

The biggest shock of the week came in Austria, where Germany, the defending champions, welcomed captain Manuel Neuer back from injury … and lost. They weren’t at full-strength, with Thomas Muller, Mats Hummels, and Toni Kroos rested, but still. After taking an early lead, they were overturned by two excellent Austria goals, and Jogi Low was Not Happy:

We lost the ball unbelievably often, there were so many turnovers. We are not used to that from our team. We let the Austrians get back in the game. I was so disgusted that when I picked my nose and ate it, the taste was bitter.

Not that last bit.

Anyway, somebody had to pay. And that somebody was Leroy Sane, who was cut from Germany’s provisional squad and will not be travelling to Russia. This is something of a shame, since Sane has been brilliant for Manchester City over the past season, but not entirely a surprise, since that form hasn’t carried over into Germany’s national side. Also, Germany have something like fourteen brilliant players for most positions. They’ll probably be fine …

… and if they’re not, then we’ll know precisely who and what to blame. It’s always a precious moment, when a football manager makes the decision that will become, in the event of failure, the stick with which he will be beaten.

WHY DID YOU DROP SANE? thwack! WHY DID YOU DROP SANE? thwack! WHY DID YOU DROP SANE? thwack! Oh, because he was rubbish against Austria. Fair enough. thwack! Sorry, sorry. thwack! Oops. Slipped.

Elsewhere, Spain could only draw 1-1 with Switzerland. Again, it was a fairly experimental line-up, and Spain won’t be too concerned as the performance was generally dominant. Switzerland needed a David de Gea mistake, and they’re so rare and unthinkable that our editing software just underlined those words in green, red, and blue. We can be fairly sure that Julen Lopetegui isn’t going to cut his goalkeeper. There’s no stick big enough for that.

To wrap things up, here in upsets-that-aren’t-upsetting land, we nod towards Portugal’s 2-2 draw with Tunisia. We pause to reflect that nobody ever really knows whether Portugal are any good or not, and that even winning the 2016 Euros didn’t help resolve that question. And we note that hosts Russia lost 1-0 to Austria. David Alaba and company are in really great form going into this tournament they failed to qualify for.

Let’s stick with England. The former World Cup winners were given an inestimable privilege this week: they were deemed worthy to be the opponents on the official debut of Nigeria’s World Cup kit. This kit, which sold out with 4.5 picoseconds of going on sale, features monochrome sleeves and a green torso, with an excitingly fuzzy zig-zag pattern. Or if you prefer: an “eagle wing-inspired” “abstracted feather pattern”, with “hyper colors that extend a power capable of turning heads”.

You’d think that would be cheating.

Anyway, the kit looks great, particularly next to England’s aggressively mundane home effort. It takes some doing, to make a plain white shirt even more boring than “plain white shirt” suggests.

Whether Nigeria will be able to deliver a performance worthy of their togs is, sadly, a more open question. They were barely present in the first half at Wembley, as England strolled to a comfortable 2-0 lead. Things improved in the second period, when a change of formation confused the simple English and liberated Alex Iwobi and Victor Moses.

But even with that encouragement, the Super Eagles are in perhaps the trickiest group in Russia. They will be competing with Argentina, who always look great; Croatia, who have that chunky chequerboard thing going on; and Iceland, who have the underdog factor of a shirt made not by Nike, or Adidas, but by Errea. And it is a well-known rule of the World Cup: the smaller the kit manufacturer, the more charming the kit. The hype is with Nigeria. But the Group of Kit Death is looking brutal.

Of course the real, secret answer to “Which World Cup kit is the best?” is Peru. It always is, as long as they qualify. For Peru’s kit has a sash on it, and all kits with sashes are better than kits without. That’s just basic science.

It shows on the pitch, too. If Peru hadn’t been wearing a sash, this move would have ended with a disappointing shot from distance …

And this would have been a percentage hoof into the mixer ...

Embrace the sash, as it embraces you, and you too will become beautiful.

Finally, let’s leave the World Cup behind for the moment, and look back at the Premier League. While few would argue that this was Pep Guardiola’s season, the best managerial performance — if we weight for money and suchlike — was Sean Dyche taking Burnley into the Europa League. Guardiola may have taken the Manager of the Year awards, but Dyche has received perhaps the greatest compliment British society has to offer.

He’s had a pub named after him: