Hello friends and welcome to the Euro 2021 Final review. I’d normally not say anything else here – there’s just the game to get to. But I thought in light of the off-the-field issues which have surrounded the Final, I’d put a few preliminary thoughts here up top.
Sadly, the behaviour of certain segments of the English support was reprehensible. Violence and vandalism are only understandable in situations of grave injustice which very clearly does not include it being the day of a final which England are playing in. And the horrible torrent of racist abuse doled out against the English players who did not score their penalties is unacceptable. Every country and society has its problems: one of England’s is clearly the racism, entitlement, arrogance and hatred too many white English people both feel and feel comfortable expressing openly. I’ll have a bit more to say about the somewhat complex stadium invasion elements of this soon, but the racism element is devastatingly straightforward: it’s utterly wrong and we must do more to prevent racist abuse.
England 1 (2) v 1 (3) Italy
England have been trying all tournament to start games on the front foot and boy did it pay off here: the fastest goal ever scored in a Euro final and it was as good a team and individual goal as you might see. Luke Shaw started the move on the left touchline deep in the English half by shouldering past Federico Chiesa and slipping the ball to Harry Kane. Still in his own half, Kane turned and spotted the run of Kieran Trippier on the opposite flank. His pass from the centre-circle was perfect, encouraging Trippier to continue his run onto the ball and luring the entire Italian backline across towards that side of the pitch.
Trippier took a few touches to get the ball to the corner of the 18-yard box and let his attackers catch-up to him – including Shaw who had sprinted the best part of the length of the pitch to be free on the far side of the box. Trippier’s cross looped over the crowd in the centre, Shaw addressed it with an almost casual jog and spanked it with his left foot the millisecond after it had bounced up off the ground. The ball kissed the inside of the left post and slammed into the net a mere 116 seconds after kick-off. England were 1-0 up in a final at Wembley and I think we all knew in our hearts how this was therefore going to end.
But for the first thirty minutes or so, England continued to play with a verve and elan that has so often been the antithesis of their tournament performances. Kane’s passing from midfield positions was breathtaking and Italy were more porous out wide than an old pumice stone, but England could not find the second goal. And so, given time to breathe and think, Italy began to clamber back into the fight.
Perhaps Italy were still rediscovering themselves after spending the match against Spain on the defensive. Jorginho and Marco Verratti started to get their feet on the ball and their teammates responded to the tempo-setting conductors. Chiesa unsettled the English defenders with pace and direction, hauling the entire game up the pitch towards Jordan Pickford’s goal. Pickford made several good saves, John Stones got a crucial block in front of Ciro Immobile’s goal bound shot and Lorenzo Insigne almost wriggled between three white shirts to find goal but had closed the angle too tightly.
England could not get out. Italy had taken the centre and the flanks. They retreated to the penalty area which they still held, but hope was fading. The goal was coming. We heard drums, drums in the deep. Or perhaps that was just the police dragging out the remaining stadium invaders. When it came, it wasn’t from the magic feet of Chiesa, or a curling shot from Insigne. An Italian corner was flicked into the struggling mass of figures around the back post. John Stones and Giorgio Chiellini fell over grappling and Verratti stooped to head towards goal. Pickford’s desperate lunge managed to redirect it onto the post and back into play and reacting with the pace and presence of a true striker, centre-back Leonardo Bonucci tapped home from centimetres out.
England had to come out of their shell to impose themselves on proceedings. Raheem Sterling summoned up reserves of energy to run at the defence time and time again but between Bonucci and Chiellini there was not a micron of space available. Italy still looked more likely – Berardi almost scored a winner that would have instantly been goal of the tournament, hitting a left-footed volley coming from over his shoulder on the run narrowly over the bar. Emerson’s wicked low cross somehow evaded two lunging Italian feet before Pickford scrambled it clear. In the end, neither team could find the decisive second goal.
No team had ever won two penalty shoot-outs at the same Euro tournament. Spain and Switzerland had already failed to do so in previous rounds. Italy had gone through from the semi-final through penalties. England, who had previously seemed to have a witch’s curse on them in shoot-outs, had won their last two.
The two keepers were a contrast in styles. Gianluigi Donarumma is a proper man-mountain both in scale and in temperament – calm and composed under an amount of stress that would exceed the lethal dosage for most mere humans. Pickford is smaller, constantly agitated, darting around; but despite this contrast both were excellent in the shoot-out.
For brief seconds, it could have been England’s night. Kane and Harry Maguire scored the first two while Pickford saved Andrea Belotti’s effort. Marcus Rashford had a chance to make it 3-2 and his stuttered run-up sent Donarumma the wrong way, but unfortunately Rashford’s shot hit the base of the post and bounced out. Domenico Berardi and Bonucci both scored while Jadon Sancho couldn’t get past Donarumma. Jorginho, normally a lethal penalty taker, failed also when he had the chance to seal Italy’s win, leaving young Bukayo Saka to take the fifth penalty to keep England in the game. Donarumma however, had other plans. He dived to his left and palmed away Saka’s effort, disappearing moments later under a pile of blue-clad Italians.
It was the right outcome. Italy have been the best team of the tournament all the way through. They scored 13 goals in seven games and knocked out Belgium, Spain and England – all fantastic teams. They dominated the game here and from about thirty minutes onwards, looked like the only team who might win it on the pitch. They didn’t even qualify for the 2018 World Cup, now they are the champions of Europe. In attack they are rapid, clever and irresistible. In defence, they are almost ironclad. Donarumma was rightly player of the tournament, a keeper who makes world-class saves look boringly routine and who stared down elite penalty takers in two successive shoot-outs. Bonucci was player of the match in the semi-final and final of the tournament. Chiellini is Chiellini. Gli Azzuri are back, and football is indeed coming Rome – to join Italy’s Eurovision title, the first time a country has held both. I think we can safely declare Italy the cultural capital of Europe for the first time since perhaps 330 CE.
Conclusion
What a tournament. Can we do it all again from the top please? It had everything from bouncing stadiums to two 3-3 knock-out draws on the same day to a 40 plus yard wondergoal. It had England beating Germany and winning a semi-final, Switzerland knocking out the world champions France, Denmark going all the way to the final four; and at the end of it all, we have a magnificent, glorious, exciting and entertaining Italian team carting home the trophy. Condolences to England who were undoubtedly the second-best team at the tournament and had to lose in the most heartbreaking way possible.
So all-in-all, a discordant note of ending from an English-based perspective. But this is the world we live in. Sport and politics are inextricably woven together and they cannot be separated. Football happens in society, the people playing and watching are all part of society and don’t check their individual natures – good, bad and ugly – at the gate of a stadium. This shouldn’t undermine our appreciation and respect for the English team and management who have been magnificent in so many ways over the past month. Hopefully, we (and all the England players) will be able to look back at this month and remember the entertainment, joy and distraction it provided in the midst of a grim year.
The It’s-coming-home-ometer rating: 1 empty stadium lit up in red, white and green out of 10