The Daily, Monday 10th July 2023

England complete the youth set, and football without consequence.

England win the Under-21 European Championships

There was something fundamentally contradictory about the late drama in the final of the European U21 Championships in Tblisi late on Saturday afternoon. Drama, there certainly was. England led 1-0 against Spain thanks to a deflected free-kick which bounced off Curtis Jones and completely wrong-footed the goalkeeper just before half-time.

But six minutes into stoppage-time Levil Colwill clipped Abel Ruiz, and after a VAR check a penalty kick was awarded to Spain. Ruiz stepped up, only for goalkeeper James Trafford to save, then save the rebound, and then see a third attempt veer wildly over the crossbar and into the stand behind the goal. There was even time for two late red cards, one of which was issued as a second yellow to Morgan Gibbs-White, not that he seemed bothered when dancing around the pitch with the trophy a few minutes later.

These final few moments contrasted sharply with the rest of their tournament. In short, England were the best team in this tournament. They are the first team in the history of the U21 European Championships to win it without conceding a goal. Six wins, and six clean sheets. It wasn’t always as heart-stoppingly exciting as the last seconds of the final were. But that speaks volumes for the relatively stately way in which they cruised through the rest of the tournament, if anything.

The tournament was strangely overlooked in England. Matches could only be watched through the UEFA website, with nothing even made available on YouTube, and no television deal was in place until Channel Four decided to clear a couple of hours in their Saturday evening schedule and reach agreement to show the match live.

And even in the press, trying to find coverage of the group stages was extremely difficult. Even a match against Germany, usually enough to get certain quarters of the press in this country spouting unpleasantries without any provocation, passed by relatively unremarked-upon.

But make no mistake about it, this England team were very, very good. It’s difficult to pull out one standout performance from a substantial list of players. Quality was spread throughout the team. They were solid at the back and took their chances when they got them. If ever a team’s performance throughout a tournament earned a little fortune right at the death to get them over the line without an extra thirty minutes, it was this one.

And the experience for the players will have been just incredible. It’s easy for those among us who are supporters, it’s easy to start to believe that the players take or leave tournaments the same as we may. But the reaction at the end of the final was the big giveaway, the players running in every direction, beaming from ear to ear. This quite plainly meant a lot for them, and they will be all the better for the experience.

Getting used to winning is a far healthier state of mind than having weirdly complex feelings about it, as England teams have frequently seemed to have in the past. And there’s a lot to be said for having not only won the tournament, but for having been quite clearly and evidently its best team. Considering how many of these young players are already established in Premier League teams, it all bodes well for their future.

Consequence-free football on a July afternoon

In some respects, I wasn’t terribly happy about it all. Football in July—with obvious caveats for summer leagues, major tournaments, and the very early stages of European competitions—is for perverts. But on Saturday afternoon, at Culver Road in Lancing, I was one such deviant.

As a rule, I don’t usually do pre-season friendlies. To me, they are consequence-free football. shorn of the context that makes them matter in the first place. But short of a couple of parents on the school run and the occasional trip to the park with my kids, their friends from school and their parents, I don’t get that much face to face social interaction with many people above the age of seven years old.

So we stood and watched an extremely one-sided pre-season friendly between Lancing and Shoreham. Lancing are two divisions above their opponents, and it showed throughout a first half when ring-rustiness on front of goal was the primary reason why they didn’t race away into a comfortable winning lead by half-time. By the end it was 4-0, which felt like a reasonable score considering the gap between the two teams at the start of play.

Throughout the first half, you could just about convince yourself that this was a late summer league match. The players were going for it, and a reasonably-sized crowd was making a fair amount of noise too.

But as the game progressed that feeling of competition started to ebb away. There was a vast number of substitutions at half-time, and as the heat of the midsummer afternoon started to slow the players, those who’d had a pint or two a little too quickly before the game and had spent the first half bellowing also seemed to wilt in the sun.

There was a time when football had an off-season, when there was no football, and the sports pages of the national newspapers would pivot to cricket and other summer sporting events instead. This doesn’t—and surely cannot—happen any more, but this summer it has finally felt as though there has been something of an interregnum. A break between the end of the last round of international matches. An actual close season.

This won’t last, of course. The friendlies have now started and the Women’s World Cup begins in a week and a half, while the English leagues are now less than a month away from starting. So perhaps I should quit complaining about going to matches when Wimbledon and The Ashes are both on and be more grateful for the fact that I can get out, meet a good friend and have a beer in the sunshine in the first place.