Despite all the excitement building up over the past week, on Sunday, July 11, 2021, England lost the Euro 2020 final to Italy 3-2 on penalties.
England scored what was to be their only goal at 1:57 in, boosting their fans’ hope of bringing football home. Here are the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with Prince George at Wembley Stadium:
https://twitter.com/NewsForAllUK/status/1414328512912281608
Italy did not score their only goal until late in the second half.
Then came two 15-minute tranches of extra time followed by the dreaded penalty shoot-out, which unfolded like this:
The excitement was palpable:
Then, a feeling of doom set in:
And, finally, the youngest player, Bukayo Saka, saw his penalty saved:
Instead of football coming home, it was a case of coming Rome:
That answered L’Equipe‘s question of tea or coffee:
https://twitter.com/NewsForAllUK/status/1413991325259767809
Goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma was the Player of the Tournament:
A fan of his saw stardom coming as early as 2017.
Meanwhile, back on the England side, manager Gareth Southgate hugged Bukayo Saka:
While Italy received the trophy and gold medals, England were given silver medals, which most of the players removed immediately, except for Saka:
Agreed. Accept the medal and keep it on.
An Italy player traditionally cut some of Wembley’s net to take back to Rome:
Meanwhile, England tweeted a message to fans:
Gareth Southgate deserves a big thank you. England held Italy back as long as they could and went to the bitter end:
There used to be a weekly hour-long sports roundup in the United States in the 1960s, which was introduced with these words, announced sombrely:
… the joy of victory and the agony of defeat.
Monday’s newspapers clearly reflected the agony of defeat:
That said, we can look forward to next year … maybe. The stakes will be much higher, as it’s the World Cup:
This was my favourite message. It is not unknown for a London Underground employee to use the service information board for something other than travel:
Lovely.
——————————————————————————————-
Further reading: The Telegraph has a good post-mortem.
Churchmouse Campanologist 
5 comments
July 12, 2021 at 10:10 pm
OIKOS™- Art, Books & more
Reblogged this on NEW OPENED BLOG > https:/BOOKS.ESLARN-NET.DE.
LikeLiked by 2 people
July 12, 2021 at 10:11 pm
Die Erste Eslarner Zeitung (@EslarnerZeitung)
I’m sorry. But you had the pleasure, of being there until the end. 😉 Have a beautiful week. xx Michael
LikeLiked by 2 people
July 13, 2021 at 10:43 am
churchmouse
Thanks, Michael, for your commiserations and for the reblog, both of which are greatly appreciated.
I hope that you, too, have a splendid week. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
July 13, 2021 at 5:57 am
James Strong
England lost partly because of the woke attitudes of the FA, the manager and the team. That’s me being polite, the reality is that their own racism partly contributed to the defeat. Penalty takers were put on cold, and if you think that their skin colour was irrelevant in their selection as penalty takers then I’ve got a bridge to sell you. The plan , had England won, was to praise the ‘diversity’ of the team and the successful penalty takers. The plan failed. Rashford failed to even put his penalty kick on target.
LikeLiked by 2 people
July 13, 2021 at 10:49 am
churchmouse
Rashford’s kick was awful. That little gesture he made with his hips beforehand — trying to psych out the goalkeeper? — ruined his approach to the net.
Who puts ‘cold’ players in at such a crucial point in the match? No one, except for Gareth Southgate. He could have rotated them in the second half, when Italy had us running around exhausting ourselves. But no.
I would have had plans A through E for player rotation, mapping responses to varying scenarios, and I am hardly the world’s biggest football fan.
LikeLiked by 1 person