Euro 2020: Finally Here

I was all set to title this inaugural Euro 2020 post something along the lines of "Good Start", but then yesterday's horrific event happened, where Danish midfielder Christian Eriksen collapsed from what looks like a cardiac arrest, so something too triumphal felt out of place.

Luckily, he was saved, in part because the stadium where that game took place is basically right next to the best hospital in Denmark. I'm also going to forego the invidious comparisons between Danish and US healthcare, because he'd have gotten the same speed and level of care here. The main thing to say is that it's a relief they saved him, and hopefully he makes a speedy recovery.

In terms of the actual football, though, it is good that it's back. It never entirely left, of course: since last year we've had a season and a half, plus the second edition of the Nations League. And even when the 2019-20 season was interrupted, the football podcasts kept going, with retrospectives on notable games from the past.

This is different, because the crowds are back. None of the stadia are completely full, which is as it should be, since the pandemic is far from vanquished (just check out the uptick in UK cases if you don't believe me). Yet the sight of the Stadio Olimpico in Rome hosting Andrea Bocelli singing Nessun Dorma, and the pyrotechnics and choreography, is a welcome echo of the pre-Covid world. Another such echo was the sound when England scored the single goal in today's match against Croatia, that "YES" the crowd shouts in unison that has always been so satisfying to hear on Match of the Day.

My girlfriend teases me about all the nostalgic posts I write here, but it's clear that I'm not the only one thinking back to happier times during this tournament. This might just be because I listen to so many British football podcasts, but Euro 1996 and that Three Lions song (which I love, incidentally) are all over the coverage I'm seeing. 

On top of that, Bocelli singing Nessun Dorma is a direct reference back to Italia 90, when Luciano Pavarotti sang it. That World Cup was a huge touchpoint for my generation, and though it passed me by almost completely, when I got into football a few years later everybody was still talking about it... it even effectively launched the career of James Richardson, who made his name reporting on Italian football in the wake of the interest that the British public found after 1990.

The presence of the Danes is also evoking the unlikely victors of 1992, when they only joined the tournament last minute as replacements for Yugoslavia. Denmark had failed to qualify for the 8-team tournament that year, coming second to Yugoslavia, but then got called in when Yugoslavia had to withdraw owing to its civil war. It's unclear something like that will happen again this year, but the tournament frequently throws up shocks, so we'll see what happens.

The main thing that fans are responding to, I believe, is the gradual return to normalcy. It's fatuous to say that football is the single most important driver of culture in Europe, but it's notable that the pandemic was one of the few times all football ceased throughout the continent (apart from Belarus, I guess). As the Guardian's writers noted, not even the Second World War completely stopped football in England, even if the First Division had to be suspended.

I detect a sense of giddiness among the journalists and podcasters, now that the football really is coming back and the fans are back with it. Tournament summers are always sunny and pleasant in my memory, even if the years that surrounded them were pretty grim (I even found myself recalling the summer of 2008 fondly, even though the rest of the year was pretty much a shitshow for me), and this summer has already promised to be another fun one.

And frankly, why shouldn't it be? Europe is still facing the threats of the pandemic, rising far-right nationalism, trouble-making from the authoritarian countries on its fringes and the threat of its own economic and cultural irrelevance in the face of the US and China. Football, however, is the one thing Europe has that the rest of the world wants, and the European Championships are a good showcase of the strength and cultural reach of football... after all, I still remember when the networks here wouldn't carry the tournament at all.

At the same time, the Euros are a chance for the disparate countries of Europe to share their love of something, notwithstanding their fractious nature the rest of the year. Like the Eurovision Song Contest (something I resolutely do not watch), the Euros are a festival that takes no account of the politics that have taken place during the previous four years - case in point, the presence of England, despite all its moves to separate itself from the continent otherwise.

Sometimes the politics do filter in, like the glee that accompanied England being knocked out by Iceland the same week as the Brexit referendum. But in general the Euros (and the World Cup) are a big party, where everybody just gets to enjoy the football and add new memories to their series of tournament summers.

So yes, I'm glad the Euros are back, and that Italy started out strongly, and I'm even glad that English fans are parping about how "it's only bloody coming home". Because this year, amid all the death and sickness and chaos, football really has come home.