EURO 2020- A paradise for all the football fans around the world!
This year’s European football competition has been unlike any other tournament witnessed by football fans.
After having been postponed for almost a year because of the Covid 19 pandemic, for the first time the tournament is being played in 11 different cities which are Baku, Amsterdam, Budapest, Bucharest, Copenhagen, Glasgow, Munich, London, Rome, Seville and St. Petersburg 11 different stadiums catching the essence of football from all over Europe.
Euro 2020 (as it is continued to be called despite taking place in 2021) follows a season unlike any other season we have seen before in the world of football. A season which was disrupted by the global pandemic during which most of the football was played behind closed doors without any fans in the stands. Football chants replaced by artificial noises by the broadcasters did not do much to compensate the absence of fans.
After a long wait of 15 months EURO 2020 has been a breath of fresh air , for the second time after 2016 .The title of Champions of Europe is contested by 24 countries which have reached the competition finals by playing various qualifiers between 2016 and 2020.
UEFA Euro 2020 has brought fans across the European continent back into the stadium, following the guidelines provided by the health organizations some matches are played with a limited capacity of fans in the stadium. Return of fans to the stadiums has been one of the highlights of the competition but the tournament itself has been one of its kind.
During the course of the tournament players and the fans continue to give a strong message by taking a knee before the game that there is NO PLACE FOR RACISM in the beautiful game .
From 70,000 Hungarian fans pushing the Hungarian players who put on valiant effort against heavyweights like Portugal, France and Germany in Group F the Group of Death where everyone would have expected them to go crashing out of the competition they lost one match(against Portugal ) and drew two matches( against France and Germany) giving the defending champions and the world cup winners a run for their money.
To the chants of “It’s Coming Home “ being heard louder than ever as the Brits managed to defeat the Germans after a long wait of 55 years in a knockout game of the competition.
The tournament has had many underdog stories such as Switzerland knocked out world Cup Winners France in a penalty shootout when the Swiss Goalkeeper Yan Sommer pulled of a fine save to a penalty taken by French star Kylian Mbappe.
Sweden, Ukraine and Czech are the other teams who have left their impressions on the footballing world with their performances reaching the Round of 16 and the quarter finals respectively
On matchday 2 the game between 1992 euro winners Denmark and 1st timer’s Finland turned into a spectacle of horror as arguably one of the best players Denmark has ever produced Christian Eriksen stumbled to the ground as the ball was thrown in from the touch line towards him on the 43rd minute of the game, his teammates and the referee realizing something was horribly wrong called the medical team onto the scene immediately. Danish Captain Kjaer one of the first to get to scene placed Eriksen in recovery position. CPR was administered as the silence bestowed in the stands, fans in the stadium did not know if the player was alive. Danish player covered their teammate by forming a wall in front of him while the doctors did their job.
Against the odds after the debacle Denmark were able to put solid Performances in the upcoming games and have reached the Semi-Finals where they will face the The Three Lions (England) in the Wembley Stadium.
Denmark’s success was celebrated by all the fans of all the countries as they showed incredible determination and grit by coming back against Russia after being 2–1 down and then equalizing in the last 11 minutes with a absolutely stunning goal.
Switzerland on the other came back against a world champions after being 3–1 down and then equalizing by scoring two goals in the 81’ and the 90’ taking the game to extra time and then to penalties where they would go on to win and knockout the world champions.
These are the kind of stories we the fans of The Beautiful Game live for. Now as we edge towards the End of the Competition 4 countries remain Spain, Italy, England & Denmark. Spain will take on Italy on 7th July at 12:30 am IST where as England will take on Denmark on 8th of July at 12:30 am. Both the games will be played at the Wembley Stadium, which is also known as the Home of Football.
EURO 2020 in a Nutshell
The tournament has already been a treat for the fans and yet it promises more drama, action, joy and sorrow and all the other emotions you are capable of feeling. Nothing in the world can make a person undergo such wide range of emotions in just 90 minutes.
Pubs in England will be full, beer cups will be thrown in the air out of joy or maybe out of agony.
Songs will be sung on the roads and in the stands as for those 90 minutes nothing else would matter, the whole world comes to a halt and in the end the team which wants it more will emerge victorious.
-Aditya Chitnis
