Sports
England start Euro 2024 with a win – but there was that familiar issue of losing control
Jude Bellingham wasn’t having it. He wasn’t having Serbia forcing their way back into this match and, once it was over, he wasn’t having anyone rain on his or England’s parade.
It was put to him in the post-match news conference that while the first half against Serbia had shown why England are among the favourites to win Euro 2024, the second half had shown the shortcomings that might ultimately be their undoing.
“I don’t really agree with that,” said the 20-year-old, England’s goalscorer in their 1-0 victory in Gelsenkirchen. “The first half shows why we can score goals against any team and the second half shows why we can keep a clean sheet against any team.”
Bellingham said there was “always a negative theme” in terms of public and media reaction to England’s performances — “and sometimes rightly so” — but he preferred to accentuate the positive.
They had to “hold on at times and suffer a little bit” in the second half at the Veltins-Arena, he said, but they had won the game. And “this team is still new”, he added, “gelling together with every game”.
He made some good points. Not so much those about what England had proved by beating Serbia, but certainly those about this being a new squad and about the desperation in some quarters to criticise performances and, in particular, manager Gareth Southgate at every opportunity.
(Christopher Lee – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
It was impressive to see such a young player talking in such forthright terms, determined to challenge and reshape the narrative around his team. He wasn’t going to shrug his shoulders and let journalists talk down his team’s prospects.
But it wasn’t as convincing as his typically assertive performance on the pitch. England played well for half an hour, taking the lead when Bellingham charged into the penalty area and finished off an excellent move with a bullet header from Bukayo Saka’s cross, but their early momentum faded and was never recovered. The second-half performance was passive; Serbia substitute Dusan Tadic said England had “offered themselves to us”.
All of this would be far easier to gloss over if it didn’t seem symptomatic of a long-term trend. There are so many things Southgate has changed for the better over the past seven-and-a-half years, but there are still so many occasions when, having taken charge of a game, his team gradually lose the initiative, retreat and find themselves clinging on unconvincingly.
It happened against Croatia in the 2018 World Cup semi-final, away to Spain in the Nations League later that year, Italy in the Euro 2020 final, Italy again in a Euro 2024 qualifier in Naples last year. England still managed to hold on to win two of those games, but not the two that mattered most when the stakes were highest.
(Michael Regan – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
How far do you want to go back? European Championship eliminations at the hands of Iceland in 2016 and Italy in 2012. It happened against the U.S. in their opening game of the 2010 World Cup. It was the theme of their World Cup campaign in Germany in 2006 when they ended up hanging on for a stodgy win over Paraguay in their opening game and had a similar experience against Ecuador in the round of 16 before succumbing to Portugal in the quarter-final here in Gelsenkirchen.
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There is a technical issue in terms of the type of midfielders England have had, but it also seems to be part of the national team’s psyche. England lost quarter-finals from winning positions against Portugal at Euro 2004 and Brazil in 2002. First half good, second half not so good — as their then-coach Sven-Goran Eriksson used to say.
England had three shots in the first half-hour last night and then just two (a long-distance effort from Trent Alexander-Arnold and a Harry Kane header that was pushed onto the crossbar) for the rest of the game. They had 71 per cent possession for the first half-hour but then just 44 per cent for the rest of the game. The drop-off wasn’t quite as stark as that qualifying game in Naples last year (when England completed 233 passes in the first half and only 96 in the second), but it was still troubling.
The balance of the midfield was encouraging for the first 30 minutes, with Bellingham the dominant figure all over the pitch, Alexander-Arnold looking short and long with his passing and Declan Rice always moving, always doing the simple things well, always on the scene quickly whenever possession was lost.
But Alexander-Arnold’s influence faded. So did that of Saka, after an excellent first half, and Phil Foden, who was quieter throughout. The balance of the left-hand side, with Kieran Trippier filling in at left-back while Luke Shaw tries to build up his fitness, wasn’t right, but the issues went beyond that. Southgate put it down to a loss of energy among his team — “and that didn’t surprise me,” he said, “because of the lack of 90 minutes that a lot of the players have had recently.”
A team’s opening game of a tournament can often be like that. Being quick out of the blocks matters far less than building momentum as the tournament goes on.
England have done that well under Southgate. The last European Championship, when they looked rather laboured against Croatia, Scotland and the Czech Republic in the group stage before beating Germany, Ukraine and Denmark en route to that fateful final against Italy, was a case in point.
(Eddie Keogh – The FA/The FA via Getty Images)
That is why Bellingham and his team-mates were entitled to enjoy their victory here. “You look across the past few tournaments we’ve had and it’s always crucial to get the first win,” Trippier said afterwards. “It gives us great momentum and belief. It shows the character of the boys. We’ve learned a lot today, but the most important thing is the three points.”
Everyone who spoke afterwards — Southgate, Bellingham, Trippier, Alexander-Arnold, Rice, Kane — mentioned the character and resilience England had shown in the second half. When the pressure was on, they defended well. Jordan Pickford, Kyle Walker, John Stones, Trippier and Rice all made important interventions, but perhaps the most pleasing performance was that of Marc Guehi, the Crystal Palace centre-back who justified his selection.
Rice called it “a game of two halves” but said that “in the end, I thought it was comfortable”. “We have built this team off clean sheets,” he said. “At the last Euros, we had five out of seven games. We have real defensive solidity and it is about doing it on the night. To win that game tonight was a really good start for us. We just have to use the ball a bit better in the second half when it starts to get tough.”
That always seems to be the big issue for England: retaining control of games rather than allowing initiative and momentum to be lost. Rice spoke about it as if it was something that will be rectified on the training ground over the next few days before they face Denmark in Frankfurt on Thursday.
But sometimes it feels like something in England’s DNA. It is something Southgate and his players, for all the national team’s undoubted progress of recent years, still have to overcome. At least, having started their campaign with a win, they can seek to address it from a position of strength.
(Top photo: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
Sports
Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit
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A law firm leading the charge in the ongoing Supreme Court case over trans athletes in women’s sports has responded after a federal judge suggested the case’s ruling could impact a separate case involving a similar issue.
Colorado District Judge Kato Crews deferred ruling in motions to dismiss former San Jose State volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the California State University (CSU) system until after a ruling in the B.P.J. v. West Virginia Supreme Court case, which is expected to come in June.
Slusser filed the lawsuit against representatives of her school and the Mountain West Conference in fall 2024 after she allegedly was made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with trans teammate Blaire Fleming for a whole season without being informed that Fleming is a biological male.
Meanwhile, the B.P.J. case went to the Supreme Court after a trans teen sued West Virginia to block the state’s law that prevents males from competing in girls’ high school sports.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is the primary law firm defending West Virginia in that case at the Supreme Court, and has now responded to news that Slusser’s lawsuit could be affected by the SCOTUS ruling.
“We hope the ruling from the Supreme Court will affirm that Title IX was designed to guarantee equal opportunity for women, not to let male athletes displace women and girl in competition. It is crucial that sports be separated by sex for not only the equal opportunity of women but for safety and privacy. Title IX should protect women’s right to compete in their own sports. Allowing men to compete in the female category reverses 50 years of advancement for women,” ADF Vice President of Litigation Strategies Jonathan Scruggs said.
Slusser’s attorney, Bill Bock of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, expects a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the legal defense representing West Virginia, thus helping his case.
(Left) Brooke Slusser (10) of the San Jose State Spartans serves the ball during the first set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Oct. 19, 2024. (Right) Blaire Fleming #3 of the San Jose State Spartans looks on during the third set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym on October 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. ( Andrew Wevers/Getty Images; Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)
“We’re looking forward to the case going forward,” Bock told Fox News Digital.
“I believe that the court is going to find that Title IX operates on the basis of biological sex, without regard to an assumed or professed gender, and so just like the congress and the members of congress that passed Title IX in 1972, allowed this specifically provided for in the regulations that there had to be separate men’s and women’s teams based on biological sex, I think the court is going to see that is the original meaning of the statute and apply it in that way, and I think it’s going to be a big win in women’s sports.”
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared prepared to rule in favor of West Virginia after oral arguments on Jan. 13.
Slusser spoke on the steps of the Supreme Court on Jan. 13 while oral arguments took place inside, sharing her experience with a divided crowd of opposing protesters.
With Fleming on its roster, SJSU reached the 2024 conference final by virtue of a forfeit by Boise State in the semifinal round. SJSU lost in the final to Colorado State.
Slusser went on to develop an eating disorder due to the anxiety and trauma from the scandal and dropped out of her classes the following semester. The eating disorder became so severe, that Slusser said she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months. Her decision to drop her classes resulted in the loss of her scholarship, and her parents said they had to foot the bill out of pocket for an unfinished final semester of college.
President Donald Trump’s Department of Education determined in January that SJSU violated Title IX in its handling of the situation involving Fleming, and has given the university an ultimatum to agree to a series of resolutions or face a referral to the Department of Justice.
Among the department’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team spike her in the face during a match. ED claims that “SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘misgendering’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”
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SJSU trans player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and had Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)
SJSU Athletic Director Jeff Konya told Fox News Digital in a July interview that he was satisfied with how the university handled the situation involving Fleming.
“I think everybody acted in the best possible way they could, given the circumstances,” Konya said.
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Sports
Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush
Myles Garrett is in a hurry to become the greatest pass rusher in NFL history. The Cleveland Browns All-Pro defensive end set the single-season sack record in 2025 and has cracked the top 20 career leaders after only nine seasons.
“I’m going to take that down, and I prefer I take it down in the next five years,” Garrett told Casino Guru News last month.
Off the field, however, his urgency to get from point A to B is a problem. He’s accumulating speeding tickets at an alarming rate.
On Feb. 21, Garrett was handed his ninth speeding ticket since his NFL career began in 2017. He was cited for driving 94 mph in a 70-mph zone on Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.
The citation from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says Garrett was driving his green 2024 Porsche at 1:35 a.m., returning home after attending a Miami of Ohio basketball game in Oxford.
Body cam footage shows the officer telling Garrett that she kept the charge under 100 mph so that a court appearance wouldn’t be mandatory. Garrett reportedly still holds a Texas driver’s license — he attended Texas A&M — and told the officer that he did not have an Ohio license.
Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett wears a jacket displaying his girlfriend Chloe Kim before the women’s snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy.
(Lindsey Wasson / AP)
The officer wrote that the famously affable Garrett was “kind and cooperative,” and that drugs and alcohol were not a factor.
Garrett’s need for speed flies in the face of his persona. He has written poetry since high school, peppers social media with inspirational sayings and donates time and money to several charities.
His girlfriend is two-time gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, for whom he wrote a poem he shared on social media: “You enrapture fools to kings, and exist without a peer, put on this Earth for many things, but our love is why you’re here.”
Verse hasn’t slowed his roll. On Aug. 9 he was cited for ticket No. 8, clocked at 100 mph in a 60-mph zone in a Cleveland suburb a day after the Browns returned home from a preseason game at Carolina.
Garrett’s seventh ticket followed a frightening crash in 2022. He flipped his gray 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S off State Road in Sharon Township and he and a female passenger were injured. He was cited for failing to control his vehicle due to unsafe speeds on what had been a slick roadway.
A witness told a responding police officer that Garrett’s vehicle went airborne, took out a fire hydrant and rolled three times. Garrett sustained shoulder and biceps sprains and was sidelined for the Browns’ game that week against the Atlanta Falcons. His companion was not seriously injured.
Cleveland television station WKYC reported that in September 2021 Garrett was stopped twice in a 24-hour period — for driving 120 and 105 mph. The infractions occurred on Interstate 71 in Medina County, where the speed limit is 70 mph, and he paid fines of $267 and $287.
A year earlier, Garrett was cited for driving 100 mph in a 65-mph zone of Interstate 77 — again while driving a Porsche — and paid a $308 fine. He accumulated his first batch of speeding tickets in 2017 and 2018, and the police reports recite similar circumstances: Garrett driving well over the speed limit, cited without incident, paid a nominal fine.
The piddly fines certainly aren’t a deterrent. Garrett, 30, and the Browns agreed to a four-year contract extension in March 2025 that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time. The deal pays the seven-time All-Pro more than $40 million a season and includes more than $123 million in guaranteed money.
He set the NFL single-season sack record with 23.0 last season, surpassing the 22.5 accumulated by T.J. Watt and Michael Strahan. Garrett has 125.5 career sacks, averaging 14 a season, a pace that would enable him to break Bruce Smith’s career record of 200 in five years.
“That is definitely on my mind to go out there and get,” Garrett said. “That’s a goal I’ve had for years now since college.”
Garrett has declined to discuss his driving habits.
“I’d honestly prefer to talk about football and this team than anything I’m doing off the field other than the back-to-school event that I did the other day,” he told reporters after ticket No. 8 in August, referring to a charity appearance.
“I try to keep my personal life personal. And I’d rather focus on this team when I can.”
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Former ESPN broadcaster Keith Olbermann once again incited backlash on social media Wednesday after he called late legendary college football coach Lou Holtz a “legendary scumbag” in an X post on the day Holtz was announced dead.
“Legendary scumbag, yes,” Olbermann wrote in response to a clip of Holtz criticizing former President Joe Biden in 2020 for supporting abortion rights.
Olbermann received scathing criticism in response to his post on X.
“You’re a scumbag that needs mental help,” one X user wrote to Olbermann.
One user echoed that sentiment, writing to Olbermann, “You’re the real scumbag here. Lou Holtz had more class, integrity, and genuine decency in his pinky finger than you’ll ever show in your lifetime.”
Another user wrote, “You’re a grumpy, lonely, Godless man. All the things Lou Holtz was not.”
Keith Olbermann speaks onstage during the Olbermann panel at the ESPN portion of the 2013 Summer Television Critics Association tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel July 24, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Olbermann has made it a pattern of sharing politically charged far-left statements that are often combative and ridiculed on social media, typically resulting in immense backlash.
After the U.S. men’s hockey team’s gold medal win, Olbermann heavily criticized the team for accepting an invitation from President Trump to the State of the Union address. Olbermann wrote on X that any members of the men’s team who attended the event were “declaring their indelible stupidity and misogyny,” while praising the women’s team for declining the invitation.
In January, Olbermann attacked former University of Kentucky women’s swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler for celebrating a women’s rights rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments for two cases focused on the legality of biological male trans athletes in women’s sports.
Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz listens before being presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in Washington, D.C., Dec, 3, 2020. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“It’s still about you trying to find an excuse for a lifetime wasted trying to succeed in sports without talent,” Olbermann wrote in response to Wheeler’s post.
In 2025, Olbermann faced significant backlash after posting (and later deleting) a message on X aimed at CNN contributor Scott Jennings, that said, “You’re next motherf—–,” shortly after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.
Holtz was a stern supporter of President Donald Trump, even saying in February 2024 that Trump needed to “coach America back to greatness!”
Near the end of Trump’s first term, shortly after former President Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election, Trump awarded Holtz with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States.
After Holtz’s death was announced Wednesday, several top GOP figures paid tribute to the coach on social media.
Those GOP lawmakers included senators Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; representatives Greg Murphy, R-N.C.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Erin Houchin, R-Ind.; and Steve Womack, R-Ark.; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; Indiana Gov. Mike Braun; U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon; and Rudy Giuliani.
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Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, addresses the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda Summit at the Marriott Marquis July 26, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
At the time of publication, prominent Democrat leaders have appeared silent on Holtz’s passing, including prominent Democrats with a football background.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who worked as an assistant high school football coach; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who was a recruiting target for Holtz in 1986 as a college prospect; Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who played in the NFL; and Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Ill., who played football for the University of Illinois, have not posted acknowledging Holtz’s death.
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