England can finally end 55 years of misery
ALL the years of hurt, England fans sing about it. All that sense of entitlement, rival fans are irritated by it.
After decades of embarrassment and moaning at tournaments, the English have a chance to finally back up the bravado — just listen to the team anthem, “Football’s Coming Home” — with a trophy.
The nation that lays claim to being the inventor of soccer, but is more fittingly one of the sport’s great underachievers, is back in a final — against Italy in the European Championships.
The teams will meet on Sunday night at Wembley Stadium in London where England will be going for its first major title since winning the 1966 World Cup on their home field. The Italians are unbeaten in 33 games.
It’s been 55 agonizing years for England through 26 World Cups and European Championship tournaments, seven of which they didn’t even qualify for.
Even less illustrious national teams like Denmark and Greece have won trophies since then. But England became all about falling short on a world stage it felt it should dominate.
Beating Denmark on Wednesday broke through the semifinal obstacle at least in the Euros, prevailing 2-1 in extra time and avoiding the penalty shootouts that have proved to be the team’s nemesis through all those near-misses.
“What a brilliant moment for us,” England coach Gareth Southgate said on the field with fans still singing into the night at Wembley. “Let’s savior this.”
No way were the England players missing out on the chance to lap up the acclaim of a crowd waiting for this healing moment, not only to reach a final again but to gather in such big numbers again as the pandemic-restricted capacity swelled to 66,000.
“It’s too late,” Southgate quipped discussing any attempt to curtail the exuberance. “We all let ourselves down on the pitch.”
England has played five of its six games at Wembley. Of England’s games so far, only the quarterfinal victory over Ukraine was played away from home.
While Harry Kane didn’t score in the group stage, the striker now has four goals in three games, including putting in the rebound of his saved penalty in the semifinals against Denmark.
The team has conceded only one goal in six matches.
For the crestfallen 1992 champion
Denmark, defeat spelt the end of a fairytale run to the last four after the trauma of witnessing star Christian Eriksen collapse in its opening group game against Finland with a cardiac arrest.
Raheem Sterling, who was brought up a stone’s throw away from Wembley, fell under Joakim Maehle’s challenge and referee Danny Makkelie pointed to the spot.
Kane, normally deadly from 12 yards, saw his nervous, weak effort saved by the outstanding Kasper Schmeichel, but the Premier League top scorer was quickest to the rebound and slammed home.
It gave England an advantage they would keep until the final whistle, which sparked scenes of delirium in the stands and on the pitch as the Three Lions players partied.