Sort Your Bulgarias From Your Romanias

England U21 1 v Slovenia U21 2

UEFA 2022/23 U21 EUROs Qualifying Group G

Monday 13 June 2022

Played at Huddersfield Town

England were already qualified for next year's U21 EUROs in Romania & Georgia. (Or Bulgaria and Georgia as it was announced over the speakers before kick off). That "incident" was the beginning of a shoddy night all round.

A bit of lazy defending in the first minute gifted the Slovenians the opener (via the method of O.G.). (The Slovenians scored a second goal on 64)

The game only really came to life on 90+1 when Cameron Archer pulled a goal back for England & they started chucking something at it. A mirror image of the game I was at in Czech Republic on 3 June. There, a late Czech goal to take it to 2-1 shook it all up.

It's difficult to know how critical to be. Long season for the Young Lions. Mid June FFS. Already qualified. Unbeaten in the group. (Not now, they fucking ain't). But, it looks very uninspiring at times. No real press from the oppo. Yet, the Centre Backs, Creswell and Hardwood-Bellis were very reluctant to move forward with the ball. Lateraling it between them and then out wide. James Garner could have taken responsibility by taking it off their toes & driving from there.

And, the attacking "threat" all seemed to be based on attempted clever short balls of an "oooohhhh look at me" nature. Nothing urgent or incisive.

AnyRoadUp that sets up a 2023 Summer Of Decisions for the Carrier Bag Firm. National team in the Nations League Final Four (unlikely). National team in EURO 2024 Qualifying. U21s in Romania/Georgia. Maybe the U20s in the World Cup in Indonesia. Needs prioritising.

In order to make our logistics work for this one at Huddersfield, we had to go - safe Monday afts drinking. We chose;

Magic Rock Tap

Willow Park Business Centre, Willow Ln, Huddersfield HD1 5EB

The last time we were in there, was during that bit of lockdown where you could drink outside, if you'd booked a table & the waiter brought your drinks. Great times…

I think the Tap is plausible as they'll always have the cores on. And you might be able to tick something unusual and/or one off. Bizarrely, I found I had never Untappd High Wire Grapefruit. So I had one of those to get the monkey off.

They had ten (of their own) on Keg. And four Cask. The one that intrigued me most was;

Magic Rock, Hat-Trick Blonde on Cask at a deelish 3.7%

What intrigued me was the description of Modern Blonde Bitter. I'm vaguely familiar with their Hat-Trick Bitter. (Brewed "in association" with Hudders Town in honour of their Hat-Trick of league titles). This was a blonder take. Brewed with Mandarina Bavaria and Centennial T-90 Hops. And whole leaf Cascade.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. Pleasantly bitter in a longish finish. But quite biscuit up top off the malts. Do for me.

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