A day of exercise and watching exercise

 Woke sore and stiff and seriously wondering whether my visit to the gym later on today was a good idea or not. It’s not that I don’t want to do exercise – I do – but my body is in such a mess at the moment that I am not sure what I will be able to do. Maybe it is the Ottawa effect again, maybe not, but I hurt all over and have started to take painkillers for it. Admittedly, this consists of two Tylenol twice a day, but I have never been a believer in pills for the sake of it, so I am not overly happy at the concept. It might be a case of sink or swim; we will no doubt see.
 
The ”assessment” when it came was good. Spencer, the Assessment Guy was seemingly knowledgeable and obviously said the right things to keep me interested. But the price… a block of 12 sessions with a trainer costs close to $1,000. I wasn’t quite sure what to do – so I grimaced, took  a block of 12, and we’ll see how they pan out. It’ll hopefully push me enough in the right direction to want to do something more.
 
After a quick lunch with Mrs. Ottawacker, I went to do some work, stopping myself at 3 (despite my best intentions) to go and watch the England game. Now, I am not – as you may have noticed – an England fan; this, however, is more down to what they represent than what they are. I don’t think they played particularly badly, but there were a couple of bad selections from Southgate that, in my humble and probably worthless opinion, stop England from developing. Harry Kane being the big and obvious one. He is completely lost in that team and stops it from playing with any shape. You need Alexander-Arnold in there – because quite frankly he is the only one who can pick a pass – but to make him work, you need to stretch the game and have players making runs. Kane makes runs, but they are all the wrong ones. They are all heading back to his own midfield. For me, Palmer is the obvious answer. Keep Foden wide, drop Declan Rice and play TAA, and open up play.
 
As much as I am antipathetic towards England, the banal noise from the commentators had me rooting for them to win. It never ceases to amaze me how bang average former players (in Canada, we are treated to a cacophony of Steven Caldwell, Terry Dunfield, Luke Wileman and the occasional screeching ultracrepidarian. While this is, admittedly, a step up from the grim days of Vic Rauter and Craig “deer in the headlight” Forrest, it is far from good. And nor is the coverage from the live feed any better. I think we were given the bumbling insights of Matt Holland yesterday (or it might have been Matthew Upson); regardless, neither of them has ever set the world on fire. So to hear the “he should have done better there”, the “that’s poor from Player X”, and the “not good enough in that position” that consistently crawls out of their yaps is rather galling. In fact, I’d say it is not good enough, it is poor, and they should be doing better. FFS, it almost made me root for England. Thankfully I saw sense and didn’t have to have a long shower to clean myself off.
 
In the evening, I took Ottawacker Jr to his soccer practice, and then on his return watched the end of the Canada vs. Peru Copa America match. I noticed that Peru is now called Perú, which goes well with other new countries that are springing up all over the place, notably Turkiye and Czechia. Czechia, I can sort of get, but why change the spelling of Turkey? Of course, you can do it in your own language, but why change it in English? Surely it is more of an orthographical issue? When will the official unveiling of Ingerlund be, I wonder?