• The final of the goalkeepers Pickford and Donnarumma, the inheritance of opposite lines

  • The Chiesa explosion An heir lineage of the Mazzola and the Maldini

  • Plague An invasion of flying ants stalks Wembley in time for the finale

  • Eurocup Teams devour divos

  • Opinion A fair final

It was economic and political interests, as always happens in football, that prompted the now-disowned

Michel Platini

and his courtiers to design the never-before-seen Eurocup almost a decade ago, but the story built around him varnished that idea with a patina of romanticism that led the football community to do a sidelong exercise about their real motivations to accept it as good. Europe united around a ball, thousands of fans touring the continent chasing a national dream with a final season at Wembley, the emotional epicenter of football due to the history inherited from its original version already demolished.

The script was perfect, at the expense of his protagonists, the footballers, honoring him on the pitch. They have done their part, drawing a great European Championship, perhaps one of the best ever, which tonight

will crown Italy or England

, two allegories of the

prevalence of the collective over individualities

-like Spain, like Denmark-, precisely the idea of Europe that this tournament was intended to represent. Around the ball, however, everything has been destroyed. Populism threatens the project of unity of the continent as it has never done since the Second World War and the final is disputed in a country that broke ties with its closest neighbors to fly alone again.

That powerful Europe is today a fragile Europe, economically and emotionally worn out by a pandemic that has blown up consensus and altered social customs. The imagined great torrent of fans filling airports and cities has not existed because of international restrictions, turning praise into complaints. Nothing that was not planned for more than a year, despite what UEFA decided to go ahead with a tournament format that today recognizes failed. There were too many financial commitments already collected to give up.

The money, precisely, justifies that Wembley is going to be today, as it happened in the semifinals,

a pre-pandemic oasis

. Despite the alarming increase in cases in the United Kingdom - the 14-day infection rate per 100,000 inhabitants exceeds 500 cases - the London stadium will once again host

60,000 spectators

in the final

, 70% of its total capacity

. The mask is already a vestige of the past and social distance a chimera, both within the stadium and in public transport and other areas of British society, in a climate of national euphoria encouraged by the government of

Boris Johnson,

which it is preparing to eliminate all pandemic regulations within a week. Football was always a symptom of how a society beats.

Wembley, like Paris, is well worth a mass.

The restrictions on foreign travelers will also cause the final to be a trap for the enthusiastic Italy of

Roberto Mancini

, who curiously acts as a local.

All the pressure, then, is for England, with everything in favor to break with its historical marriage with failure, whose only exception was the 1966 World Cup, resolved at the old Wembley.

The defeat of the

Gareth Southgate

national team

, after playing six of their seven games in London, would be a drama for a country that cannot bear the more rudeness of the sport that they themselves invented more than a century and a half ago.

The Three Lions are undoubtedly loaded with the band of favorites, but in this European Championship, you know, nothing tends to go as planned.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • sports

  • England National Soccer Team

  • football

  • Euro 2020

  • Italy Soccer Team

EurocopaThe explosion of Chiesa and a lineage heir to the Mazzola and the Maldini

The teams devour the divos at the Euro

EurocopaBusquets: "You have to be proud. This is the way to go to the World Cup"

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