We’re on the verge of the greatest international sports summer ever! We have:
- Copa América
- Euro 2020
- Concacaf Gold Cup
- Tokyo Olympic Games
And it all starts on June 11, 2021 with the European Soccer (Football) championships aka Euro 2020!
Yes, it is 2021 but they decided to keep the name, ok?
From now until the tourney starts, we’ll be giving you previews for every country in Euro 2020, DFO-style, of course. We will also provide previews of all the Copa América countries as the Copa América starts on June 13, 2021 right after Euro 2020 starts.
Euro 2020 will be broadcast in English on ESPN in the United States and on TSN in Canada. Univisión has the Spanish language rights in the US and TVA has the French language rights in Canada. Here is a handy calendar for you to use to schedule your vacation days:
Today’s country is…
England!
(Don’t fly the Union Jack if you’re rooting for them. Wales, Scotland, and half of Northern Ireland will lose their shit. Also, billions of colonized people.)
Country Fun Facts
England is NOT Great Britain. It is one of four nations in the British Isles that share a share a monarch, military, and many departments of a federal government. If the Cornish independence movement gains ground thanks to the complete dipshittery that is the Brexit process, perhaps it might even be five soon enough.
England continues to have a royal family. They are inbred as shit. However, the Queen is now single, so if you have both your 23andMe family tree and a nice pile of cash immediately on hand, shoot your shot, I guess?
There are more chickens in England than there are people. If Labour ever wants to win another election (and to prevent more Tory gerrymandering), they should consider enfranchising the chickens, I suppose.
Team Schedule
England is hosting Group D at Wembley Stadium with Scotland, Croatia, and the Czech Republic.
Tuesday, June 13, 2021 – 9 AM – England v Croatia: The Croats were World Cup finalists a couple of years ago, with much of that squad returning for this tourney. This is going to be a tough game for the Three Lions – a loss here would not be unexpected at all.
Friday, June 18, 2021 – 3 PM – England v. Scotland: Christ almighty, this is going to be an absolute war. In the stands, especially – if crowds are indeed allowed. I’ll bet my left nut that government officials want to see pubs filled to capacity for this match, though the UK is heading into another wave of COVID thanks to another mutant strain, so that remains to be seen. If fans are allowed in the stands/people are allowed to congregate to watch this one, you are gonna see some wiiiiiiiild shit on the internet in the aftermath of this game. (Expect England to win this one.)
Tuesday June 22, 2021 – 3 PM – Czech Republic v. England: In Euro qualifiers, the Czechs and English played twice; the first was a 5-0 victory for the Three Lions, while the second was a narrow 2-1 win by the Czechs. This was the only loss that England had in all their qualifying matches leading up to the tourney… so they might lose this, but I don’t think they will.
Team Preview / Top Players
England is one of the last teams to release their final roster. Leading the way is team captain and top striker Harry Kane, winner of the 2018 World Cup Golden Boot. Complete roster is below:
Goalkeepers: Dean Henderson (Manchester United), Sam Johnstone (West Brom), Jordan Pickford (Everton),
Defenders: Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool), Ben Chilwell (Chelsea), Conor Coady (Wolves), Reece James (Chelsea), Harry Maguire (Manchester United), Tyrone Mings (Aston Villa), Luke Shaw (Manchester United), John Stones (Manchester City, Kieran Trippier (Atletico Madrid), Kyle Walker (Manchester City)
Midfielders: Jude Bellingham (Borussia Dortmund), Jordan Henderson (Liverpool), Mason Mount (Chelsea), Kalvin Phillips (Leeds), Declan Rice (West Ham)
Forwards: Dominic Calvert-Lewin (Everton), Phil Foden (Man City), Jack Grealish (Aston Villa), Harry Kane (Tottenham), Marcus Rashford (Manchester United), Bukayo Saka (Arsenal), Jadon Sancho (Borussia Dortmund), Raheem Sterling (Man City)
The notable omissions this year were midfielder Jesse Lingard, who was a late cut, and young striker Mason Greenwood, who’s dealing with some injury woes. On paper, this is a good team, but much like the Dallas Cowboys, early-2010s LA Lakers, or the Toronto Maple Leafs since time immemorial, there’s much reason to believe that they won’t play up to form. Such is life for a nation that claims to have invented the damn sport, after all.
Best result when you Google Image Search “Hot English Girls”
No complaints here.
Best result when you Google Image Search “Hot EnglishFood”
England is not especially regarded as a culinary hub, however, it does some things extremely, extremely well. Having grown up eating a lot of traditional English food (in part due to my grandmother’s cooking as well as my mother’s strong East Coast heritage), I love me a good plate of fish and chips. The traditional English breakfast of eggs, rashers (sausages), ham, beans, toast, tomatoes, and black pudding is also fucking delicious, especially paired with a morning pint of ale. Many other nations – particularly the French – rag on English cooking as being bland and dull, which for many years I think was fair to say was true, but with changing demographics – including a large influx of immigrants from formerly colonized nations such as India – curry is quickly becoming a popular, well-used feature of many English dishes, including kebabs, chicken, and much more.
Also, in Wigan you can get a Wigan kebab (which is no kebab at all), a smack barm pey wet, or a babby’s yed.
Maestro, have you ever been to this country?
Unfortunately, I have not. As you may know, I am an avid historian of all things English and British, in part due to my close family history. My paternal grandmother was an English war bride who married a French-Canadian on leave in the UK, and spent over sixty years of her life living in Canada. My father’s extended family still owns and operates a dairy farm just north of London; I have many close living family members (almost all of whom I have never met) still living in the UK. Once COVID has subsided and the Tories finish crashing the UK economy via Brexit and the pound drops considerably, Lady Maestro and I will absolutely be making a tour of Old Blighty as a cheap vacation option.
Why you should root for this country
Choose at least one:
- You are a complete glutton for punishment.
- You are completely stuck in a bygone part of the past that ain’t never coming back.
- You enjoy watching Harry Kane do cool shit. He legitimately rocks.
Why you should NOT root for this country
- You are a citizen of a country that got brutally colonized by the English.
- You are Scottish.
- You are Irish.
- You are French.
- You are… I digress.
- You want to root for a team that can actually fucking win this thing, and not merely flame out disappointingly early once again.
PrognostiKateMiddletoning
England makes it out of the group stage and then loses in the first round of knockouts… rinse and repeat from almost every major fucking tournament. English media spend the next two years incessantly fucking whinging about it, although there might a clever newspaper headline or two.
All in all, I have no expectations of joy. I use the Euros and World Cup as an excuse to day drink, as virtually all of you do as well. Perhaps something cool might happen all the same. But I’m not counting on it.
[…] BGR: I’ve been about a half-dozen times, and each visit results in numerous bottles coming home stuffed into luggage & wrapped up tighter than a fat man’s belt. My one regret is that I’m a little too old to waltz into a distant relative’s home & innocently proclaim, “Hi, I’m cousin Robbie from Canada!” I’ll leave shenanigans like that to Maestro. […]
TAA injured and out of the Euros. Put on your White Michael Jackson glove because Lingardinho is expected to replace him.
Also, for your trip, staying in pubs can be pretty fun: https://stayinapub.co.uk/
England didn’t have a restaurant culture for a very long time, and pub food is definitely hit or miss. They actually do have quite a few decent foods, but they’re more on the home cooking side and difficult to find as a tourist. Ever since mad cow they overcook the hell out of their meat though, gone are the days of rare roast beef!
Example of shitty pub food: Doritos with catsup on top sold as “nachos”
Did anyone watch Master of None season 3? I found it excruciatingly slow, the characters unsympathetic, and am puzzled by the mostly positive reviews.
Is it only based on the black couple or does Aziz pick up where he left off with the Italian woman.
I spent 2 months at a comms site in the Cotswolds, and had one decent meal off-base the whole time.
Once COVID has subsided and the Tories finish crashing the UK economy via Brexit and the pound drops considerably, Lady Maestro and I will absolutely be making a tour of Old Blighty as a cheap vacation option.
An old slum tourism destination becomes a new one!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slum_tourism
a good plate of fish and chips.
Whenever I visit my relatives up in Mass, my cousin and I always take a few lunches on the water downa Cape. She almost invariably orders the fish and chips.
Facts about England that may have been missed:
Kate is exactly my cup of tea. Sorry, my “cuppa.”
For instance, you may be in school and you see your friend Sam, who is not at all a hobbit, and you say, “Cheerios, Sam! Did you see that pic of Megan in The Weekly World News?”
Sam replies, “Did I ev-uh, gub’ner!”
I would refuse to bang any and all members of royalty, out of principle.
/not that I expect the chance to test this BRAVE hypothesis, mind
A typical British dining establishment:
Filet-o-Fish-n’-Chips
England has worse pizza than Canada:
My then-fiance (now ex-wife) told a great story about being pissed and late-night hungry (she did a study abroad in Hull).
Ordered an “American style” pizza, and the fucking thing had sliced tomatoes and canned corn on it.
They used to (still?) put kernel corn and sliced potatoes on pizza at the Shakey’s in Yokusuka Japan.
I remember my friends going to Shakey’s (maybe even that particular one) and talking about how good it was. Mind you, comparing it to pizza on base, so not exactly the best of comparisons.
Straight up the street from the Yoko main gate, on the left, a few hundred yards maybe.
On one hand, I fucking hate the Cuck LioUns. On the other, this is maybe the only chance I have to see Jordan Pickford and DCL ever win anything.
In summation, eat my nasty old ass, football
More of my London banger pics. I lived on this shit while I was there. And yes, I would wait until I was down in the tube and then cut enormous loud stinky farts. “God Bless America!” I’d shout after each salvo. “The Redcoats are coming!” Or sometimes, for variety, I’d sing “O Canada” and fart between the made-up verses.
I’d argue that England not playing up to form is their real form.
well, LA DEE DA, look who just broked teh Matrix…
Quit kink shaming me!
I think if England had a better manager, they could win the Euros.
Southgate has 4 right backs and 4 centre backs heading to the Euros (and he didn’t even bring the best defensive RB). He has all that attacking talent and Gareth is going to play a back 5 with two holding midfielders. He wants to go off roading when he has a Porsche.
England reminds me of United because they have lots of talent but lack the ambition from the coach to attack and create chances.
Also, whomever let Slabhead and Rash go to the Euros needs to get punched in the fucking dick. Both are playing hurt and are a tackle away from being out 10+ months.
I don’t know what you mean. South Gate is right off the 710, and you don’t want to go back there any time of the day.
I just passed right by South Gate!
Heading to Compton for some gang bangers and mash?
Picking up King Taco in Maywood, the best King Taco in all of LA. They have Carne Asada a la Tampiqueña, cocido, pozole, and enchiladas de mole!
steps to mic for soccer preview and current tennis tournament
Nobody likes the French, anyway.
applies deodorant which, for the French, is like garlic for a vampire
Maybe the “Stiff Upperlip” associated with English people is actually from them trying to hold in all the intestinal gas engendered by such a daily breakfast, especially the beans. All those people on a train or in the subway after eating such a breakfast, would probably smell slighty worse than the French Metro on a very hot day towards the end of the week.
Try the metro from Inchon to Seoul in the morning. The whole train smelled like a Roman Vomitorium due to the garlic in the kimchee. I nearly gagged, and I like garlic.
No buttered toast? No KIPPERS??! BOLLOCKS TO THIS SPREAD!!!
Mmmm. English breakfast. Fooking brutal scene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0z62IALjqM
I’ve got a sock tan just like that.
That’s not a sock tan, that’s how you know soaking your tootsies in a tub of cyanic acid is doing the job…
Oof! They sell loofahs everywhere now
HINT
That’s her job
Easy there, Mr. Kraft.
Sassenachs! English people, many of them anyway, have a wildly inflated sense of their own importance. It’s like an entire country full of Massholes. Fuck them, I hope Scotland tears them a new one!
There’s a DFO sign-up sheet for celebration riots should Scotland defeat Englen. Just a couple car fires, nothing too Irish.
Just stuff a little peat in the gas tank opening, light it, and then 5 hours later… KERBLAMMO!!
Oooo. Well, I must say that I don’t quite appreciate your tone. You rebels are really so impudent…
I hear they have a lot of spotted dick. Not sure why, but I assume there is a penicillin shortage in that country.
Remember the time Larry Tate spotted Dick?
My one and only trip overseas put me in London the day of the 2018 World Cup final. All England had to do was beat the Croats in the semis, and I would’ve been amidst the craziest sports fan environment possible. Alas, twas not to be. At least I made a few quid betting on the French.
My cellist friend was in France. During the WC Final. She mentioned it was a madhouse. And she (and her bf) don’t even know footy!
What about the Welsh?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQe2NS9pDSI&ab_channel=FlipFlop
They’re shaggy, like their ponies
I too enjoy watching Harry Kane do Harry Kane things. No way he survives the tournament without injury though, thereby making him an unattractive transfer target. I’m guessing Levy has (cheaply) hired a sniper to strike in the the last pool play match.
pew pew
Nowhere near as mock-jingoistic as I expected. I don’t know how to feel.
I expected us to have to write a rebuttal for our Scotland post next week.
BoJo has killed all of my mock jingoism forever. Parody is dead with this current Tory government.