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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.
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