The English empire continues to crumble.
In soccer, at least.
In a World Cup Qualifier that was comically rained out Tuesday because nobody had thought to close the retractable roof on Warsaw's Narodowy Stadium and so was played on Wednesday instead, Poland scuffed yet more of the sheen off England's once-glimmering reputation. The 1-1 tie frankly flattered the visitors.
The country wherein many continue to consider it their birthright to dominate the game just because they so happened to have coded its modern-day iteration, seemed to make a point of showing just how far it has slipped from the world's highest rung.
England was as safe, mirthless and bland as the ideas of its manager, Roy Hodgson, who continues to insist on playing his hopelessly outdated formation of two banks of four behind a pair of strikers. Even though England had most of the ball, the vivacious and imaginative Poles produced the bulk of chances, even though they were without their talismanic captain and wi...