EURO 2024
Friday June 14th — Sunday July 14th
France @ 4/1
England @ 9/2
Germany @ 9/2
Spain @ 9/2
Portugal @ 6/1
Netherlands @ 14/1
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Euro 2024 has been a whole lot of fun thus far, but we have now reached the stage where eliminations occur and return flights must be booked. The dreams of departing fans – their faces a blotchy, streaky mess of tears and smeared currywurst sauce – put to bed for another couple of years.
Scotland have just joined Poland in the departure lounge – paying the price for employing the unusual strategy of trying to win games without having any shots on goal.
But as an advocate of a smaller tournament I have been made to look rather foolish by the extraordinary stadium atmospheres generated by followers of countries who may not have featured in the past. Türkiye v Georgia alone contained enough buzz, incident, and great goals to more than justify the expansion.
Young players have starred too – Jamal Musiala (21) and Florian Wirtz (21) have sparkled for the hosts, Francisco Conceição (21) made a decisive contribution to Portugal’s campaign, and Lamine Yamal (16!) is already a key cog in a humming Spanish outfit. And at the other end of the spectrum, Pepe (41) has shown that he still has a keen appetite for tenacity and destruction.
Nothing underwhelms quite like England at a major tournament.
It is possible to compile a decent top ten best goals of the tournament; VAR interventions have been mercifully swift; and there are still almost three weeks to go. So what could there possibly be for me to moan about? Oh. Yes. That’s right, England.
Nothing underwhelms quite like England at a major tournament. That old, familiar feeling of a brief flicker of hope slowly spluttering out over the course of 90 minutes. A few crisp passing exchanges, the adrenaline jolt of an early goal…inevitably, glacially replaced as the game progresses, with tired dysfunction and fist-clenched tetchiness.
Players who, just a week or so ago, were being hailed as the best in the world; suddenly start operating at a level where they would struggle to get a game for the Fox & Hounds B-Team. There is something almost brilliant about seeing this reverse alchemy return with such regularity, regardless of who is the manager.
Numerous ex-pros and pundits have posited solutions – apparently changing one player will make all the difference; cause the spice to magically flow. But the simple fact remains that, given the pool of talent Gareth Southgate has to choose from, any issues should have been identified and actioned upon long before England touched down in Germany. And his inability to engender any kind of positive change during a match seems to be another depressing, recurring theme.
England’s final group game, against Slovenia, is an 8pm kick-off in Cologne.
However they do it – a deflected goal here, a dubious decision there – topping Group C is of paramount importance. Not only will England want to avoid Germany in the Round of 16 – which they won’t if they finish second – they will also want to avoid the upper half of the draw completely if they can, given that it also already contains Spain and Portugal, and, potentially, France.
The lower half of the draw, at the time of writing, looks relatively benign; and offers a route to respectability for even a blundering, faltering, finesse-free England.
And there is always an outside chance that they somehow find a way to play football again. This is not a new situation – for England, good things have usually happened by accident rather than by design. An unexpected injury or admin error, a player leaving the team camp early to go and see Taylor Swift – events that could force a positive change.
So will England continue to kick up a stink of dysfunction on the pitch? Will there be more strife and woe in Cologne? Or will they, against expectation, come up smelling of roses?
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