... and then England lose on penalties
It could have been so good for the Three Lions team. Apart from the fact that they should have gone to a penalty shoot-out after extra time against Denmark because the referee saw a touch where there was none and forgot that there is a so-called video referee who should have been called before a match-deciding action.
Was it the coach's fault?
Before a corner in the 119th minute, the English coach changed half the team - supposedly good penalty takers, because the previous two hours were not about playing qualities. How else could one explain an English player falling to the ground with his face contorted in pain after running into the back of an Italian player and complaining that he had not been awarded a free kick? Mind you, neither of them had the ball.
Just think: the English are the ones who stand on the green in shorts during a typhoon and say: if it starts to rain, we can always stop playing golf.
When their national team lost, the Dutch press wrote: they played as badly as Wales, and that's not even a real country. True, England and Wales as well as Scotland are provinces of the Apennines, better known as the British Isles, and comparable to Holland, which is often confused with the actual country on the North Sea.
If our national team - compared with the orange fans for the various Dutch provinces, two of which are called Holland, and the three teams of the 'United' Kingdom playing against each other should be Bavaria and Prussia and Westphalia, East Westphalia, Eastphalia, Saxony and NIedersachen and Saxony-Anhalt also in separate teams; with a bit of luck even eleven men each come out - had not passed on the spirit of the 2020 European Championship in England's correct 2-0 victory, England would not be in the final anyway.
But wait ...
Are we all time travellers? Why is the event called EURO 2020? Does that mean that in four years there will be another European Championship under the name EURO 2024 or in three years under the correct name? If players and officials cannot adjust to a name corresponding to the year in such a short time as one year, what will it look like within four years?
Apropos: The period of four years is also called the Olympiad
The anticipation and adjustment for those involved is likely to be even greater for the Olympic Games in Japan, which will be held without spectators and may no longer bear the name 'major event' - in contrast to the name Tokyo 2020. For the traffic chaos on the approach routes, the crowds at the entrance and the long queues in front of sanitary facilities and other metabolism-stimulating facilities such as snack and sushi stalls, will be completely eliminated, not to mention the problem of spontaneously obtaining a ticket. It remains to be seen whether media interest can push the prevailing theme out of the headlines to at least live up to the Roman principle of 'bread and games'. For the athletes, however, it will certainly be a joyful change to have trained for five (instead of four) years, only to stand in front of empty stands and receive the recognition for their achievements that the organisers believe they really deserve.