Summer of Football thread: Euro 2020(1), Copa America, CONCACAF Gold Cup

[Cassius]

You can stick your f****** chariots up your arse.

[Cassius]

It was always going to end in tears. England are a side packed with extremely talented players (although what else would you expect from a country with such a strong footballing tradition and a large population) who generally speaking carried themselves with excellent deportment during the tournament (which is more than can be said for some previous English sides). But, you know, they weren’t that great. They came away with two scrappy wins and a draw in the pool, a decent win over a weak German side in the last-16, a victory over a very weak Ukrainian side in the QF and another scrappy win against Denmark in the SF. Even if it was at Wembley the chances of it ‘coming home’ were always slim against an Italian side who were clearly better and who had faced a trickier path to the final.

This was really barely acknowledged by the press and the punditry, who after the Germany game basically went full bore with the standard ‘this is the greatest England side since the last England side that we said were the greatest England side since ‘66… it’s coming home’ propaganda (best exemplified by Rio Ferdinand’s now ludicrous performance as a pundit on the BBC). Added to this was the torrent of w*** written about the team being ‘role models’, ‘moral leaders’, ‘Gareth Southgate should be PM’ et al, a torrent of w*** that, ultimately, Southgate attempted to surf as well (for what reason I can’t say). Both of these currents contributed to a pretty hysterical build-up to a final that England were, really, never the favorites for, and the enormous let down they have today.

Of course elements of the England fan base are deeply unpleasant; this has always been the case, Southgate himself was subjected to random abuse by members of the public after his miss in ‘96, the difference then being that the abuse took place in the pre-social media era and that in those days verbal abuse was largely something a player was expected to lump. I think the press, the punditry and, frankly, Southgate himself, did the players a disservice by going the whole hog on the ‘England team as moral crusaders’ theme, given that it was so unnecessary and a red rag to a bull to a particular section of the fanbase (not all of whom are necessarily skinheaded Doc-Martinets, but who aren’t above hurling a racial epithet at a player they’ve taken a dislike to). Perhaps it’s too much to ask, but the attitude should have been ‘they’re a football team, best of luck to them and hopefully they go out there and win something’, instead of the orgiastic display of hysteria that we got (which motivated me to not lend my support to England this time around). But perhaps that really is too much to ask and now we have to sit through the latest ‘moral reckoning’ instead.

[Cassius]

I’m not really sure that the average knucklehead abusing Rashford et al pays much mind to whatever Johnson and Patel have to say. I doubt the situation would have unfolded any differently even if we had Prime Minister Corbyn flopping to the floor every five minutes.

[Cassius]

I’m not really sure that the average knucklehead abusing Rashford et al pays much mind to whatever Johnson and Patel have to say. I doubt the situation would have unfolded any differently even if we had Prime Minister Corbyn flopping to the floor every five minutes.

I mean, it doesn’t change the fact that their behaviour has been nakedly hypocritical and cynically politically oppurtunistic (more so than is usual for politicians trying to exploit sport).

Well Boris Johnson is Boris Johnson, so opportunism is a given and I don’t think it’s especially worse than it has been on previous occasions, after all we all remember the Olympic farrago and some of us will be aware of Blair’s awarding OBE’s to the entire English test team of the 2005 Ashes (including Paul ‘Seven Runs’ Collingwood). I don’t really see the hypocrisy here. One can criticise kneeling down and one can also criticise the abuse of players on social media. This is just another one of those gotcha moments - if they’d remained silent or issued more tepid condemnations (you can’t really get more condemnatory than stating it’s a matter for the police after all) then they’d have been pilloried for that too.