There are few things in tournament football quite as nerve-wracking as watching one of your key players slide into a challenge in the 87th minute when they're already on a booking. England fans know this feeling all too well, and right now they've got four reasons to be anxious.
Four England players are currently sitting on yellow cards, meaning one more caution would see them automatically suspended for the next game. In a World Cup knockout tournament, that next game could be a semi-final. The rules are fairly standard stuff — pick up two bookings before the semis and you're sitting in the stands watching your teammates do the hard work without you.
Now, the obvious thing to say here is that players should just be disciplined and not get booked. Simple. Except football doesn't work like that, does it? Especially at a World Cup where the intensity goes through the roof, referees are trigger-happy, and a mistimed press or a frustrated word can earn you a card you didn't really deserve. It happens to the best of them.
The concern for England is that if any of those four players are genuinely important to how Gareth Southgate's successor sets the team up, then opponents will know exactly how to exploit that. You can absolutely bet that the next England opposition will be well aware of who's on a booking. A bit of pressure here, a bit of provocation there, and suddenly England are reshuffling for the biggest game of the tournament.
It's one of those situations where the manager has a proper decision to make. Do you protect a player on a yellow by leaving them out of an earlier game, or do you back them and hope they keep their head? There's no obviously right answer, and whoever gets it wrong will be absolutely hammered for it.
England have a habit of making the World Cup more stressful than it needs to be, and this is already shaping up to be another example of that fine tradition. Fingers crossed the lads keep their discipline when it matters most.
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