The north-east fan who claps Ziege when he runs down David Beckham in a league match is supposed to jeer him when he does the same in German colours. Adulation and vilification only a change of shirt apart. This, in sum, is a deeply confusing war. The game of symbolism deals inexorably in symbols. The players on the park are pawns, performing to fit our preconceptions.
Defeated managers are disgraced generals.
Defeated teams are sold back to where they came from or dispatched to the knacker's yard. And yet we also look to it as some kind of definition of our nationhood. That, in footballing logic, must be crazy. Two midfield ex-dynamos heading into their middle 30s are all we have left. But there is also a malign lack of wider logic.