Greeting tactics fans,

As predictable as the first cuckoo of spring, or the nimble swift circling in August, come September (of every even year) our England are sure to fly out on a new international qualifying adventure. Their mission? To teach the minnows of world football the intricacies of our wonderful game, and a stern lesson.

This weekend it's the completely unknown ‘nation' of Andorra. I've got a hell of a lot of experience at international level, so I'm putting my tactics cap on to make sure that we don't fall into any of the traditional pitfalls associated with playing shit teams.

Complacency

Chris Powell once told me that if a country is pink colour on your atlas it's part of the Empire, and as a card-carrying Brit you can do as you please. After searching long into the night for Andorra I'm afraid to report that it is in fact a muddy orange, meaning that we can't just expect to have it all own way on our Spanish-ish sojourn. They may look like a band of backwards Catalan peasants, but if you don't combat complacency (I'm talking to you, Rio) even a bunch of Hummel-wearing bandidos can catch you napping. Shock the squad out of their pampered stupor by downgrading their Lucozade Sport to Lucozade Original (fig 1), their Brut and Brylcream for talc and monkey grease, and stick the Neville brothers on boot duty.

fig 1:

Tricky border crossings

Andorra is so small that you can't even fit a regulation size football pitch in it. This means that the national stadium actually straddles the border (fig 2), and subsequent checkpoint. A distinct advantage is therefore handed to the sneaky dual-nationality Andorrans who will pass freely through the express lane, whilst the English midfield will be bogged down in red tape every time they want to cross the halfway line, causing the side to become unbalanced with players out of position as they wait in line. Dropping all the players with the new chip-based passports (I'm talking to you, Rio) will ease the situation, as the older passports are actually quicker to process. Blame the Brusseurocats, folks!

fig 2:

Andorra's box

If England are to pick up the full quota of qualifying points from this quadrant of conquistadors they will need to unlock Andorra's box, which will surely be housing the defensive horrors of a 10-0-0 formation. Expect pinball-esque goal mouth scrambles, last gasp tackles, ball-to-hand incidents aplenty, and a look of helpless anguish developing on the faces of our less spirited Lions (I'm talking to you, Rio). My tactics would be to forget infiltrating the box from close quarters, instead locking it back up and leaving only hope... otherwise known as England's ace-card: the long ball.

fig 3:

Enjoy the game readers, and Fabio – bring me back a chorizo and chips and we'll call it quits.