England's Euro2012: The Inquest.

At around 19:05 on 26/6/12 I'm back from the pub so this seems like as good a time as any.

On Sunday (24/6/12) England were knocked out of the Euro2012 finals by Italy following a penalty shootout. I've still not seen the game or any of the highlights. However I did watch all of England's warm up games and most of Italy's group games and decided that the two teams were so evenly matched that any game between the two would end in a draw. In a cup competition where one side has to lose this means a penalty shootout. England might have got the better of the Italians if the Italians had been having a bad day or if England's preparation had been better.

However it could have been much worse. In the original plan Harry Rednapp would have been convicted of tax evasion. So when Fabio Capello resigned there would have been a lengthy and divisive argument about whether Rednapp was the right person to manage the national side before Roy Hodgson was appointed at the last minute. As Hodgson was trying to make his mark on the team just weeks before the tournament Britain's obsession with racism in Ukraine would have re-opened the John Terry racism argument blowing the England camp apart. The ensuing infighting should have led to England being knocked out at the end of the the group stages (19/6/12).

Apart from saving the British government the embarrassment of travelling to Ukraine for the knock-out stages the idea was disgruntled English football fans would instead turn their attentions to approved sports like the Wimbledon tennis tournament that started yesterday (25/6/12) and the Olympics. Generally speaking Olympic events and tennis are both individual pursuits rather then team sports. Therefore the British state would prefer it if their population were obsessed with these rather then football. The idea being that watching these type of sports viewers are socially conditioned to believe that all they need to do is focus on themselves and work really hard and someday they will win. Of course real life doesn't work like that because as they say you never go toe to toe with the police force. However having the general public think it does makes them really easy to divide, conquer and control.

Therefore I think the ultimate sporting metaphor is cricket because you've got the almost gladiatorial battle between batsman and bowler but if the batsman proves to good the bowler can always surround him with his teammates and rely on them to catch the batsman out.


Edited at around 19:42 on 26/6/12 to add:

Blimey that took a while. Originally this post caused my home internet connection to throw a sulk forcing me to type the whole thing up on my phone. Fortunately about 1/3rd of the way through my home internet connection recovered so this was actually posted at around 19:40.