Emma Hayes achieving the near impossible while offending all the right grifters | OneFootball

There have been a lot of weird things about this World Cup, haven’t there?

But somewhere very near the top of that list for us is the extent to which ITV are winning the inevitable and historically one-sided battle with the BBC.

In the post-Lineker world the Beeb now operate in, ITV have got better presenters, better, more interesting and more engaging pundits, better commentators and definitely a better studio.

They’ve also absolutely smashed it out of the park in their one traditional area of strength, with an intro that’s beautifully filmed, expertly weaved together with spine-tingling highlight clips and set to an unimprovable soundtrack.

Roy Keane, Gary Neville and Ian Wright are all having excellent tournaments, Ally McCoist is thriving once more alongside Jon Champion and free for now of the Fletch bantershackles.

Sure, Sam Matterface and Lee Dixon are very much the ‘England’s first-half defending’ of the ITV effort so far, but one can’t have absolutely everything.

But perhaps the most surprising area in which ITV are giving the BBC a shoeing is during the widely despised Hydration Breaks.

We’ll hold our hands up here. We assumed that by this point the BBC, lacking the lazy option, would have come up with something good to fill them. It’s not like we don’t know they’re coming, is it? And we were absolutely certain that ITV would have by now just sighed and given up, sticking on a few adverts in vaguely apologetic not-our-fault fashion.

Instead, they’ve hit upon one of the triumphs of the tournament so far: Emma Hayes talking tactics at the literal chalkboard.

Football has made countless attempts to ape the success of cricket’s ability to throw to a pundit for a quick bit of tactical or technical analysis. The natural flow of cricket makes it far easier there, of course. Simon Hughes as Channel 4’s The Analyst created a niche that has since – like much else in cricket coverage – been perfected by Sky Sports’ Third Man.

Until now, there has never really been a way for football to do it properly. There simply aren’t the same breaks in play or natural pauses to allow for that sort of quickish-yet-detailed instant reaction to unfolding events, to explain why a particular thing is or isn’t happening and why that matters.

For all the other faults with it, the Hydration Break provides just that opportunity. And ITV have exploited it brilliantly thanks to the inspired choices to put Hayes in charge and strip things right back.

None of the fancy gadgetry of cricket’s versions or football’s Tactics Truck failures. You don’t need that when you’ve got a chalkboard and an unmatched grasp of the modern game.

ITV have decided, adroitly, to lean into all Hayes’ greatest strengths by making the segment as lo-fi as humanly possible.

Hayes has always been a brilliant tactical pundit, as you’d expect given her coaching CV, but her greatest asset is how lightly she wears her vast and extensive knowledge, and how easily and quickly and straightforwardly she’s able to get a point across.

The description of England as ‘in position out of possession’ against Croatia was absolutely lovely stuff, of infinitely more value than any number of empty, lazy ‘he’ll be disappointed with that’ cliché-addled platitudes off of your Bloke Pundits or the performative and achingly try-hard, deliberately obtuse expertise of the tacticos.

It’s the perfect middleground for a general audience, insulting nobody’s intelligence while also sailing over no heads, and the Hydration Break has accidentally given Hayes her perfect environment.

Quick, informative, bitesize information that’s easy to digest, illuminating the game without waffle or potential for bafflement.

Of course, Hayes is a woman, so a lot of men on the internet have sadly had no choice but to pretend to be baffled anyway. ‘Where’s the bloke, love?’ and so on.

We rather liked the joke of putting her quite literally in the kitchen to (and this is key to why, for us, it works) deliver the best analysis on any World Cup channel even if we’re not quite sure why ITV’s New York studio has a kitchen and have already spent far too much time on these long tournament nights wondering just what’s in all those cupboards and drawers.

But putting Hayes quite literally in the kitchen was always going to be irresistible to some and undeniably a risk. Elton Welsby, for instance, duly fired up the ol’ AI machine – or more likely just nicked a sh*t joke from someone else in any one of the many hilarious WhatsApp groups we assume he’s in with other long-forgotten broadcasting dinosaurs.

The key point is, though, that one can simply never allow any major decisions to be influenced by what Elton Welsby might think about it. He is a deeply tragic figure, a man doomed to spend the rest of his days stalking the corners of social media occasionally gaining a modicum of attention for saying something wretched, like a Temu Richard Keys. It’s no life, is it?

We give slightly more credence to the concerns raised by the Daily Telegraph that Hayes deserves better than any kind of gag at all, even a knowing one.

But it’s always difficult with the Telegraph, isn’t it? On the one hand, they provide some of the best coverage of women’s sport out there. But on the other, there’s Oliver Brown and a rotating cast of blowhard columnists required by law to at least once a year rehash their column about why they’ll continue saying ‘batsman’ instead of ‘batter’ as is their divine right as an Englishman (not an Englisher) thank you very much.

While we accept and appreciate much of the concern here is genuine and in good faith, it’s still just hard to take the idea that Hayes is being stitched up seriously. But it’s not hard to take Hayes seriously, even in such a knowingly kitsch and camp setting. We’re content enough that absolutely nothing we know of Hayes and her career path in all areas of this great game suggests a meek character willing to go along with anything they weren’t fully on board with.

And while she’s carving out a genuine niche for herself and achieving the near impossible of making Hydration Breaks tolerable, let the small men and the obsolete dinosaurs make their fun.

It’s Hayes and ITV and ultimately all of us having the last laugh.