What seems like a very long time ago, on Friday 10th
June, before the world had gone mad, the EURO 2016 football tournament began.
As pre-Brexit Brits we were spoilt by the added luxury of three home nations in
the final and make that a fourth if you (like me) count Ireland as a sort of
‘home’ nation. I, like many others, was
yet again duped into believing that England could do well, I even made a small
wager that Roy’s Boys would reach the final (today that wasted tenner could
have bought me a menu del dia in a
Campamento restaurant but without wine). In the opening days people were shocked by
hooliganism and flying plastic chairs, but during the course of the competition
the whole of Europe reached ‘peak shock’ on and off the sporting field. What
started ugly as far as fans were concerned soon turned around as the
well-behaved, full-voiced supporters stole the show, especially Iceland with
their war-chant, which post-Iceland everyone tried to copy but didn’t quite cut
it even though they had twice as many people in the stands.
Iceland...what would this tournament have been without them?
From the get-go they became the neutrals’ favourite and Ronaldo was more hated
than ever after his ‘they’ll never get anywhere’ remarks. From that point on
everyone, apart from the Portuguese, wanted CR7 and his team to fail miserably
and get knocked out during the group stages. That nearly happened of course but
‘Plucky Portugal’, after giving us one of the most exciting matches against
Hungary, managed to hang on in there and progress; and progress they surely
did.
Where were you when Iceland beat England? I was in my living
room shouting ‘put on Rashford!’ at the telly during half-time. Roy didn’t hear
me (well he did but my voice didn’t reach France until the 85th
minute). All was not lost; we still had the second-hand glory of Wales in the
quarters. My favourite match was Wales v Belgium and for me the best goal came
in that breath-taking contest when Hal Robson-Kanu bewildered three Belgian
defenders with his spectacular Cruyff-turn. While Europe was being undone in
the political sense, the set-in-stone statistics of a European footballing past
was also being undone. Germany finally beat Italy, France finally knocked out
Germany, England got humiliated (oh, hang on...) Surely everything had to go to
plan in the end? No. As the La
Marseillaise rang out in the Stade de
France, what was supposed to climax into a mouth-watering final turned out
to be a moth-watering final. The only excitement being Cristiano’s tears,
Quaresma’s weird new hairdo and those winged interlopers. We had to wait 109
minutes for a piece of magic, ‘that Eder goal’; if you are going to win a competition
you want to do it in style, and he did. The big question is would Eder even
have played if Ronaldo hadn’t gone off? That we will never know. What this EURO
2016 taught us is the long-game, the defensive game, the win-ugly game, the ‘a
draw will get you though’ game. Slow build-ups, nearly as painful as watching
Arsenal. It’s a shame that life didn’t imitate art in this past month as UK
politicians failed to share the caution and pragmatism of European football
managers. The tears of Mesut Özil and Antoine Griezmann will soon dry, and they
will get a bevy of second chances to win international football silverware. The
same cannot be said about the Britain and the ‘one strike and you’re out’ EU
Referendum. Or can it?
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