Lineker marshalled the studio well, Mowbray and Jenas made a solid double act, but the forgetful prime minister got a kickingFootball punditry can be a detestable sham. The BBC gave an ominous reminder of that during their Euro 2020 preview show on Thursday, when Gary Lineker said Micah Richards knew a lot about North Macedonia and everyone in the studio, including Richards, fell about laughing. Apparently the notion that a highly paid analyst might swot up on one of the tournament’s lesser known teams was top banter.But that was a lone outrage in a tolerable production and, in fairness, it is both the privilege and the burden of the national broadcaster that it must try to cater to everyone’s taste....
I feel utterly disconnected from England as a nation, but supporting their football team has brought me happinessIt’s the morning after my wedding. I’m sitting down to brunch with some friends of the family. While we’re waiting for the food to arrive, I pull out my phone and browse the latest sport headlines. “Oh look,” I announce to nobody in particular. “We won the Under-20 World Cup last night.” At this, my sister-in-law’s boyfriend narrows his eyes accusingly. “Who’s we?” “England,” I respond. He looks at me like I’ve just sprinkled salt on my cornflakes. “Huh,” he says eventually. “‘We’. That’s interesting.”I support England. England is by many objective measures a terrible country ruled by terrible people with a terrible...
Italy, the first country in Europe to be hit by Covid, host Turkey in the tournament’s opening match, with both hoping to go farThe first thing you notice about Rome on the eve of Europe’s biggest carnival is that it does not exactly feel like a place on the verge of a carnival. Instead, like every other major city in these straitened, saddened times, it’s simply trying to survive: to get by, to salvage what’s left of what we used to call normality. The piazzas and cobbled alleys that would normally be thronged with tourists at the height of summer are populated mostly by smoking teenagers and waiters touting for business that isn’t there. If the start of Euro 2020...
France are favourites, but I like the look of Portugal. And the question for England is can they handle the pressure?In an ideal world you would start a tournament perfectly and go through it winning everything. That’s what every team at the Euros wants to do. It is the pressure and expectation around that desire for perfection that derails so many teams and campaigns, because a loss early on becomes a big deal. But you can lose and progress. I was part of the Denmark team that showed that at the Euros in 2017: we lost to the Netherlands (who finished as champions) in our group but still got out of the group and reached the final.How you cope with...
Portugal’s victory at Euro 2016 and formidable current team are thanks to long-term investment in coaches and youthIt is one of the iconic images of European Championship history. With Portugal closing out the final in Saint-Denis, Cristiano Ronaldo buzzes down the touchline, gesticulating wildly to his teammates with neither a limp nor the troublesome left leg that he continually clutches fettering his energy.Both in the breathless tension of the Stade de France that night and re-watching now, it feels as if Ronaldo is the coach. It was not the contribution to the Euro 2016 final that their captain and most talismanic player had imagined but despite his truncated involvement on the field, after Dimitri Payet ploughed through him early in...