It was a spectacular end to a great tournament last Sunday but it was also very sad considering the reaction to the three black players who missed penalties in the shoot-out.
I found the tournament really exceptional and many of the matches were a joy to watch and were a great demonstration of how unpredictable football is.
The Euros are always difficult to predict a winner, but I did think Italy had to be strongly considered because of the great unbeaten run they had going into the tournament.
However, having experienced so many surprise winners over the years, such as Czechoslovakia, Denmark and Greece, there was never any certainty over who would be champions.
England actually did better than I thought they would, with the side building up well over the tournament and manager Gareth Southgate keeping roughly the same team throughout.
Before the final, the only performance that didn’t measure up to their standards, was against Scotland.
We got a lot of praise for our performance that night, and rightly so, but it turned out to be the only good one from our three group games.
England improved from that match and I have to say that their only poor performance after that was in the final itself.
They got an early lead but they never capitalised on it. As I said in my pre-match notes, they were always going to have a hard job winning if Italy got a goal because of the fantastic record of Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma. In his 32 appearances for Italy, one goal was the most he had lost in any match. That’s a fantastic record and there should have been more made of his outstanding ability when he won the trophy for his country with his two penalty saves in the shoot-out.
All the attention was on Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka because they missed, when it should have been focused on how hard this goalkeeper is to beat.
Obviously Marcus Rashford missed the target with his penalty and that does generally result in the player getting heavily criticised. I’m sure he would have been the first to take full responsibility for it, but the racist abuse that all three players had to endure after the match was totally disgusting.
More needs to be done when dealing with this problem. Social media is a major area of contention and the laws need to be stricter on how the operators control the abusive messages that are put out on their sites.
At matches, the CCTV cameras employed nowadays by clubs are so good that they can hone in on any individual and categorise their behaviour and even identify what they are shouting. This would help deal with the problems we are experiencing with racism and even bigotry.
These three young players also need some personal guidance after what they have endured and I truly hope that they continue to perform at the highest level and can demonstrate that these racist abusers have not affected them mentally or dented their careers in any way.
And another thing…
With the Euros having just finished, it has hardly been noticed that our season here in Scotland is already underway with many group matches in the Premier Sports Cup already having been played.
With the teams involved in this year’s European competitions not being involved in the early stages of the competition, it requires them to prepare with friendlies prior to starting their campaigns.
Only Celtic have a known European opponent so far as they have to play in stage 2 of the Champions League qualifying round against Danish side Midtjylland. We know that Danish football is very good currently with the national team being semi-finalists in the Euros. There is however, a case to say that the club football is not at an outstanding level as most of the national players do not play in Denmark.
Nevertheless, this will still be a tough game for Celtic as Midtjylland were close to being Danish champions last season with only a defeat in the second last match allowing Brondby to move ahead of them to clinch the title on the final day of the season.
With the Champions League qualifier being Ange Postecoglou’s first competitive game as Celtic manager, it is certainly a big game for him.
It is though, an excellent way for him to get the fans onside if he pulls off a victory over the two legs.
The friendly results have been good and it is very important to build a bit of momentum before you have to deal with a meaningful European match.
It is certainly still unknown how he is going to do as the Celtic manager as this is a really pressurised position within Scottish football and he’s completely new to the players, fans and the media.
As I indicated before, I was impressed by his interview when he came here but you can never tell how any manager is going do in a new position. It’s not always the case that managers are given leeway but I do think that Postecoglou should be given a suitable amount of time if it’s obvious that he is building the team in the correct manner to put Celtic back where they believe they should be.
A result in Europe would certainly do this, but regardless of how the tie with Midtjylland goes, he shouldn’t be judged in the short term.
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