If England were playing Malta in my front garden, I’d close the curtains

A recent study of the most boring things in life included junk mail, queuing, taking the bins out and hearing about other people’s family trees. You could add “meaningless England football matches”. To coin an old Tommy Docherty joke, if England were playing Malta in my front garden, I would close the curtains.

The November “international break” throws up a pair of matches that mark a nadir, even for the tedium that is usually a friendly or Euro qualifier. England face Malta (at Wembley) and North Macedonia (in Skopje), the two at the bottom of Group C, with Gareth Southgate’s Three Lions having secured their place in the 2024 finals in Germany with October’s 3-1 win over Italy. The top price for a Malta ticket is £75. Imagine paying that much to watch football cold potatoes.

I’d love to see England win their first major tournament in 58 years – and bright young talents such as Bukayo Saka, Jude Bellingham, Marcus Rashford, Declan Rice and Phil Foden offer some hope – but the present unmerry-go-round of dull exhibition matches has hardly proved a foundation for a fluent, trophy-winning side. England had just one match in the November preceding their 1966 World Cup triumph, on a Wednesday night, sandwiched between Saturday club fixtures.

Nowadays, England fortnights are ushered in with drab, sanitised, logo-strewn press conferences. The cliche “there are no easy games in international football” will doubtless be wheeled out for these walkovers. Once the insipid “action” begins, we are expected to wave the flag for players from rival clubs who jar with us. I find it hard to cheer a Flash Harry like Jack Grealish and fully understand why Saudi Pro League has-been Jordan Henderson was booed. Most spectators believed his staunch support of LGBT+ causes wilted when the sheikhs came a-calling. I draw the line at jeering Harry Maguire, though. Poor old Harry tries hard, is tepidly good at passing and can’t help his loping lack of pace.

The international break is also a time to fret about injuries to talented players. When he was Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger compared national coaches to carjackers who abandoned vehicles in a field, with no petrol left. “We then have to recover it, but it is broken down,” the Frenchman said. West Ham fans know the feeling. In April 2021, Rice, their star player, suffered a torn ligament in his right knee, while playing against Poland. His new Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta will pray nothing like that happens in a meaningless match against North Macedonia, a team England beat 7-0 in June.

Fifa never misses a chance to stick its snout in the trough and the bloated 2026 World Cup will feature 48 nations (up from 32 in 2022), which comes at a high cost to the environment, dilutes the quality of the event and results in more mismatched qualifiers. England defeated San Marino 10-0 in a World Cup qualifier in 2021 when Harry Kane netted a hat-trick against the lowest-ranked international team. Kane is undeniably a magnificent striker, but 29 per cent of his record-breaking 61 goals for England came against San Marino, Albania, Montenegro, Malta and North Macedonia. How many goals would the late Bobby Charlton have scored against such feeble opposition?

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Wenger’s idea for biennial World Cups, with short summer qualifying tournaments and limited mid-season international breaks, seems a distant prospect. Long, turgid, untaxing qualifying campaigns are here to stay. You know there is something amiss when Scotland qualify with two games to spare. The element of jeopardy, so stark in the doleful image of coach Steve McClaren clutching his umbrella as England crashed out in the Euro 2008 qualifiers, has disappeared. Malta and North Macedonia failed to muster a single shot on the England goal in June. The only way for Southgate to add an element of risk would be to play Rishi Sunak in goal. There’s a man who has trouble holding on to a lead.

It doesn’t help that November’s dreary clashes come just as the Premier League heats up. Just five days before England vs Malta, Chelsea drew with Manchester City in a pulsating, unpredictable 4-4 draw. Club football has simply overtaken the anaemic international game, its drama fuelled by intense rivalry. What’s more entertaining, England versus 171st-ranked Malta on Channel 4 or Monty Don on BBC2?

I’ve also been ambivalent about attending England matches since witnessing an Italian family being attacked on a Tube train to the old Wembley Stadium, their shocked young children left spattered with the detritus of chips and ketchup hurled at them by a xenophobic mob. In the 21st century, they throw their filth online, including harassing Black players. Even the glitzy new Wembley hasn’t removed the carbuncle infection of ignorant, bigoted supporters. What does it say about England when the Football Association is forced (as in 2021) to switch off their social media channels “in response to sustained online abuse”?

On the bright side, there are no further international breaks until March 2024, and when they reappear, it’s with the exciting prospect of Brazil and Belgium at Wembley.

For now, it’s Malta, whose manager, Michele Marcolini, said he hopes for “an incredible fairytale”. It will certainly be Grimm.