The football delivered some moments of brilliance, the usual Oscar-winning play-acting as players took dives every time someone brushed up against them and the usual defensive and boring play for hugely long periods when both sides seemed afraid to lose possession.
It could be argued that there was more drama in the penalty shootout than in the entire match and I will forever wonder why two players were substituted for England in the final 2 minutes of extra time presumably for the purposes of the penalty shootout. That was a huge ask – and it turned into a huge fail.
After many years of top international teams being totally boring to watch, this match was top class. Even though long periods of precision passing and holding on to possession seemed to be the order of the day for both sides, the possibility of a break really was there all the time, turning it into an edgy match.
But the highlight surely has to be seeing such a huge crowd at Wembley for the first time since March 2020. No masks. No Social distancing. No BS. People openly shouting and singing and casting their aerosol droplets far and wide.
Only at the conclusion of the match did I spot a few eccentric types wearing masks – there must have been at most half a dozen of them. So pleased somebody is holding up the flag for Fauci.
I assume that there will be planeloads of Covid ridden Italians heading back to Italy on various aircraft and that Northern Italy will see a breakout of huge proportions of the new Iota Variant (or Italian variant if you want to be mean about Italy) at some stage about 14 days from now.
Similarly, England will face its own demons as the new Epsilon Variant will ravage the English countryside.
Not only did the European Cup not come home to England, but those dastardly Italians will have dropped off a variant that will become another variant which will result in the whole country being locked down for autumn and winter.
If that doesn’t happen (which I’m betting the house that it won’t), will that finally bring the Covid-19 con into some worldwide perspective?
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