Being of British descent, I’ve been invested in what has transpired over the last several weeks at Euro 2024, Tomorrow afternoon (evening in Berlin), the Three Lions will try once more for a significant international tournament championship. THE SUN’S Gary Stonehouse summed up what went down earlier this week to set that up in a bulleted style apropos for the attention span of a true football loyalist:
Gareth Southgate’s side booked their spot in the showpiece when super sub Ollie Watkins fired in a 90th-minute winner over Holland.
England had fallen behind early against the Dutch but drew level after Harry Kane equalised after he was awarded a controversial penalty.
Then came Watkins’ late strike that may just be the greatest moment in English sport since 1966.
Southgate and his side are now hoping to eclipse that by getting their hands on the trophy and ending the nation’s 58-year wait for glory at a major tournament.
Pretty damn exciting. And consistent with the kind of nail-biting results that has defined England’s run. As SKY SPORTS summised:
Throughout the knockout stages, England came from behind in all three matches. Their mental fortitude and resilience were reminiscent of top teams. Gareth Southgate’s tactical decisions, including substituting Harry Kane and Phil Foden, paid off handsomely.
But it took that sort of effort to even get its long-suffering fans to come around to the point where they are allowing themselves to believe this may be finally be their moment. Indeed, the reactions that fans were having to their performances in the group stage indicated a sense of gloom and doom that could only be attributed to what for many is a lifetime of disappointment. THE ATHLETIC’s Daniel Taylor tried to capture some of that context last month:
September, 2013: Ukraine 0-0 England. Dietmar Hamann, the ex-Germany international, referred to it on TV as “football stuck in the Dark Ages”. Gary Lineker called it “woeful”. And, though it is difficult to be sure of the exact timings, the Sleeping Man was zonked out from roughly the 11th minute to whenever everybody else in the Olympic Stadium, Kyiv, went home. “There is a gag in there somewhere,” I wrote at the time. “England: the team that send people to sleep. They dull the senses. They huff and they puff, and sometimes the good old English qualities of guts and perseverance, and all those other cliches, are enough. But it is joyless, utterly joyless.”
And that ‘tude was reinforced by what REUTERS’ Lori Ewing typed over the same fortnight:
Gareth Southgate’s side have one foot in the knockout stage as they top Group C with four points. However, it was the lack of fluidity in their 1-1 draw with Denmark on Thursday and the unwillingness to press that had fans booing them off the pitch.
Why did England get booed so much and so often during those early Euro games? Players had missiles thrown at them, as did St Gareth. Friends and family members of players, even the lesser-known names confined to the bench, also had abuse and beer thrown at them by fans nearby who were watching games from the posh seats. Fans are meant to be supporters: loyal to the team, the players and their country. Why do this when they have travelled all that way and at such expense? Because England played shite. That’s the simple answer.