Friday 14 June 2024

The Euro's 2024

This is that time, a few hours before a football has been kicked that the supporters of the 24 European Teams dare to dream, before assorted factors and reality come and kick us in the guts.
In truth the Euro's are hard to win, only 11 sides have won the tournament since it started in 1960 and three of those, the Soviet Union, West Germany and Czechoslovakia, no longer exist but England is still going as a country for now and us fans are basking in a warm glow of optimism before VAR technology, injuries, biased referees and John Stones being picked to play conspire against us.
This summer’s tournament celebrates not just the skill of the players but also life, inclusion and diversity according to the UEFA President in his pre-tournament address to the media which seems a bit deep and meaningful for 22 men kicking a leather ball around but there are some new rules for the competition with
only team captains allowed to speak to referees during games which may be tested in the first five minutes of the opening game when someone boots someone 4 feet in the air and then protests they got the ball first.
Hopefully, what we won't see is the scene of tanked up England fans lobbing plastic street furniture around in a German square followed by the smell of tear gas in the air and England fans being led away to spend the night in a German prison cell and then saying the German police are too strict with them smashing up their cities.
As for England the football team, we do have a good squad and are 4th in the World but that loss to Iceland in our final warm up game was either a dire warning that we are not as good as we think we are or a brilliant tactical move to lull the other teams into thinking we are not as good as they thought we were but whatever, i anticipate us going out when we are drawn to play the first decent team as usual.

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