For the English, an almost endless wait for a new trophy. For the Italians, it is the rebirth of one of the most traditional teams in world football, after a crisis that lasted more than a decade. The European Nations Cup Final, today, at 4pm, will reward one of the two fans who have suffered the most in recent years. From English jokes to Italian pride, the 60,000 present at Wembley will witness an emotionally charged finale.
The period of lean times and disappointments in England is explained in numbers. If she wins the Euro, it will end the longest streak of titles among world champions. It’s been 55 years of waiting. The last and only time English language team He played for a cup in a decision that was 1966, when he took over the World Cup.
Feeling of dread as much as excitement. “Most people my age weren’t alive when we won the world, so it’s something really special,” says journalist Chris Thorpe, of the World Soccer website.
It’s too little for a country to take pride in inventing the game of football – and even music for it. the song “Football is back home“ (“Football will come home”) has paragraphs that manipulate English exclusions and show how satire has become a form of support and protest. And there was no shortage of star generations to make England dream of conquest. Lineker, Beckham, Gerrard and Lampard are some of the ones who didn’t hit the crossbar, far from the finals.
It seems that this team has not been affected by the failures of the past. Said journalist Sam Lee, from the target site.
If the title comes up, the expectation is that it will become an official national holiday in the UK, the idea of fans in a petition that already has more than 239,000 signatures. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson does not rule out this possibility.
– Events like the 2011 Royal Wedding were seismic in England, but a national team victory in a major competition would be on another level – compares Dylan Walsh, of JRV Media.
From Heaven to Hell
If the title comes up, the expectation is that it will become an official national holiday in the UK, the idea of fans in a petition that already has more than 239,000 signatures. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson does not rule out the possibility: “I think it will stir fate, let’s see what happens.”
– Events like the 2011 Royal Wedding were seismic in England, but a national team victory in a major competition would be on another level – commented Dylan Walsh of JRV Media.
Beyond the scale of the English citation, Italy has also experienced its own drama. Since becoming a four-time world champion in 2006 in Germany, the team has been immersed in a painful process of generational transmission that seemed endless.
Replacing names such as Del Piero, Pirlo, Totti and Cannavaro was a complicated task, and it led to chaos and disorder on the international scene, while the traditional Italian championship was in decline.
– Putting a line with Baguio and Totti makes the slide extra high. Youngsters ended up feeling responsible for the title role, which ended up being very mischievous – says Henrique Mathias, of Calciopedia, about the difficulty of detecting abusive players in the country.
During this period, Italy lined up in the cups. They suffered group stage eliminations in 2010 and 2014. A 1-0 loss to Sweden in 2017 left Azzurri outside the World Cup for the third time in history.
“This was the culmination of a very bad cycle in Italian football, a series of painful qualifiers. The desperation intensified at that moment, but in the previous ten years, Italy had left something to be desired – explains Anderson Marquez, the Brazilian journalist based in Italy, of MondoSportivo.
Azura had reached the finals of the European Championship in 2012, but ended up with a 4-0 victory over Spain, who were then world champions. It was the arrival of coach Roberto Mancini, in 2018, that changed the scenario. A younger, attractive and talented team engaged the fans and shifted expectations in favor of Al Zora. The result was already clear before the Euro: 33 games in a row without defeats.
The Italians were afraid to fail again, but Mancini managed to keep the group together, and arrived at Euro in high spirits. He worked a lot on the tactical side and the human side, achieved good results and was loved by the fans – says Marquez.
For Mathias, the appreciation of youth, the tactical work of coaches such as Conte, Sarri and Allegri in the Italian championship and the leadership role played by midfielders and midfielders in the domestic scenario were other important factors in the revival of the Azzura.
– The collective level of the league increased and this helped in the selection.
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