Today I'm going back six years to 2016 and England's final Euro 2016 warm-up match against Portugal played at Wembley Stadium and attended by a capacity crowd of 82,503.
Spurs were very well represented in the starting line-up with five players selected (Kyle Walker, Danny Rose, Eric Dier, Dele Alli and Harry Kane). James Milner was winning his 60th cap being only the 30th player to reach that milestone. .
The game was England's 955th International match ever and was surely also one of the dreariest ever. Possibly the highlight of the first half was the incident in the 35th minute which led to Portugal defender Bruno Alves being rightly sent off. Alves made a head high challenge for a ball to Harry Kane which looked like it might just have taken Kane's head off. Alves became the first opponent to be sent off in an International at the new Wembley and the first since 1998 at the old Wembley (also England against Portugal) and equalled the record for the earliest expulsion (shared with Argentina's Rattin almost 50 years earlier during the 1966 World Cup).
After halftime it was clear that ten man Portugal were going to set up to try to avoid defeat. Extra defensiveness wasn't what the game needed as a spectacle and the restless crowd was soon trying to entertain themselves with a series of Mexican waves, always the sign of a poor game. Finally, with five minutes remaining the deadlock was broken thanks to an accurate cross by substitute Raheem Sterling right onto the head of Manchester United's Chris Smalling for 1-0 and victory. It was England's first victory over Portugal in five attempts since 1998. The goal turned out to be Smalling's only goal for England to date in his 25th appearance of what turned out to be 31 so far. Smalling's career has taken several twists and turns over the years. He was famed for starting out at Maidstone United in the Isthmian League before a short spell at Fulham and then on to Manchester United and England. Smalling made 323 appearances for United across nine seasons before being loaned out to Roma in 2019 where he remains to this day. He received a fair amount of criticism for his supposedly overly physical style and, tellingly, he was dropped by England manager Gareth Southgate in 2017 because Southgate felt that he had other players who were better at initiating play. Perhaps in response to his critics, Smalling was in Jose Mourinho's Roma side that recently won the Europa Conference League and is a rare example of a footballing vegan.
England's Euro 2016 campaign in France kicked off against Russia in Marseille nine days later with a 1-1 draw and was followed by a more domestic clash against Wales in Lens which the Three Lions won 2-1. The final Group game in Saint-Etienne against Slovakia was a disappointing goalless draw and there was some disgruntlement amongst the media and fans alike over England's performances. That disgruntlement was nothing however compared to the vitriol over the next result which sent England home in shame. England 1 Iceland 2 was possibly England's most shocking tournament result since 1950 and manager Roy Hodgson had rightly fallen on his sword by the next morning. It was the lowest of England tournament lows.
CRB Match No. 2105
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