The Warm-Up: John Terry considers his place in the football world

You’ll have presumably seen John Terry’s introduction as an Aston Villa player, via the medium of an absolutely excruciating Twitter post in which a mocked up WhatsApp conversation between Tony Xia, Steve Bruce, assorted current Villa players and, for reasons best known to Villa, Paul McGrath, Martin Laursen and Olof Mellberg, discussed the signing. Here it is, if you haven’t yet had the pleasure.

While Villa might be terribly excited about the whole thing, our JT already has his sights on the next step. After declaring that one of the reasons for his drop into the Championship absolutely, definitely, positively wasn’t that nobody in the Premier League wanted a clapped out former great centre-half who spent last season gathering rust, but rather that he didn’t want to play against Chelsea, he spoke of how he’s appreciated in the wider world.

“Maybe not. I don’t know,” he said, when asked if he feels his contribution to the game has been fully recognised. “I think that’s a decision for you guys [the media] to make, or the supporters. I’ve run out at Villa Park many times and given as good as I’ve been given and wound people up, and I understand that.

“But when I walk down the street, whether it be a Tottenham supporter or an Arsenal fan, they will say: ‘I don’t particularly like you but you’re a good footballer and I appreciate what you’ve done in the game.’ That’s the message. But what I do get a lot when you spend time and have photos with people’s kids is: ‘You’re actually a nice guy.’”

You can add ‘I don’t particularly like you but you’re a good footballer and I appreciate what you’ve done in the game’ to ‘It’s an early bath for you Mr Cantona’ to the files of ‘foul-mouthed insults toned down for a family audience.’

If we choose to politely ignore the Under-21s, on the basis that it wasn’t really their fault they lost in their Euros because they had Aidy Boothroyd as a manager, it’s been a fine summer for England’s youths. The Under-20s won their World Cup, a scratch team of young whelps playing lads two or three years older than them succeeded in the Toulon tournament, and now the Under-19s are having a crack.

And it started pretty well for them, beating Bulgaria in their opening game thanks to goals from Fulham uber-youth Ryan Sessegnon and Chelsea’s Mason Mount, who sounds less like a footballer and more an incidental character in ‘Boogie Nights.’

It’s the Netherlands next up for Keith Downing’s boys, so if they win that then we can really start placing unrealistic expectations on a wet-behind-the-ears group of kids who should really be left alone to do their thing.

Being the child of a great footballer who then goes into the game is a tricky business: Jordi Cruyff, Diego Maradona Jnr, Edinho (son of Pele). But another is following the path more tricky than the bridge at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, for one Timothy Weah has signed a professional contract for Paris St Germain.

George’s son was born in New York and initially played for their Red Bulls, but moved to PSG’s youth set-up three years ago and has now penned a big boy’s deal.

“I am very proud to continue the adventure,” said Weah. “I am in a big club and I look forward to continuing to progress so that I can one day play for the first team.”

Obviously we don’t want to put any excessive pressure on him because of his father’s legacy. He’ll have enough to deal with, knowing that his old man is regarded as a god in his home country and one of the great strikers to play the game in the 1990s. Living up to that will be a tricky business at the best of times, without us piling it on too.

Anyway, here’s that goal George Weah scored for Milan that time.

“COME ON YOOOOOUUUUU REEEEEEEEDSSSSS” sings everyone inside the stadium for the weekend’s clash between Sport Recife and Atletico Paranaense. You ever get the feeling you should be watching more Brazilian football? Looks like great fun.

In yesterday’s Warm-Up Adam Hurrey declared the third-place playoff to be a pointless affair. But they’re nothing of the sort: or at least they have the potential to be nothing of the sort. Think of it this way: you have, by definition, two pretty good international teams, playing in a game that broadly nobody cares about, so in all likelihood will play the reserves. These reserves probably haven’t had a chance to appear in the tournament so far, so they’ll be desperate for a little limelight, to show what they can do. Hence they’ll be trying really, really hard, and the sight of someone trying really, really hard in an endeavour that doesn’t really matter is always extremely funny.

But all of this adds up to the potential for genuine chaos, for tackles flying all over the place and for heroic showboating. And thus, a clown show at the end of a grinding tournament. Of course, that’s not always how they turn out, but that’s not the fault of the system. It’s not the third-place playoffs that are the problem, it’s how they’re being used and played. More of this, we say.

It has to be a particularly well-written and finely-argued piece for anyone to capture one’s attention on VAR, given the absolute tedium such debate usually inspire. But Johnny Nicholson nails it over on Football365.

With apologies to England fans whose PTSD from 27 years ago still lingers, but on this day in 1990…England v West Germany…World Cup semi-final…Paul Parker’s loopy deflection…Peter Shilton moving less freely than an un-oiled Tin Man…Gary Lineker…”Have a word with him”….Waddle hits the post…penalties….oh, god, penalties….tears…defeat…Gazza’s comedy breasts.

And now the fallow season, ahead of the actual season, really starts to bite. There’s not even a game in the Under-19s Euros to watch today, and the Women’s European Championships doesn’t begin for another couple of weeks. So your only chance for watching live football is a couple of very, very, very early Champions League qualifiers. Linfield face La Fiorita of San Marino for the pleasure of playing Celtic, while the streets of Total Network Solutions will be preparing themselves for dancing if their brave boys get past Europa FC.