NL.13 --euros 2024 (this is how it will end)
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NL.13 -- Euros 2024
this is how it all ends
JUN 30
Listen along as you read and see if you like…
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I'm giving in to the footie in the early summer evenings.
To the hum of story-lines, posturings, the managers’ dance between utter frankness and complete diversion. To the immersive dramas on, and mostly off, the pitch. To the eruptions of cheering heard from the street. To the hand-wringing philosophies of sportswriters from one camp or another. To the affectionate jokes between neighbours: the Dutch people, for instance, having taken a look at the current state of German trains, will opt just to cycle to the Oranje's matches . . .
Plucky Ukraine. Even pluckier Georgia. The Scots needed a new Ally McCoist up front. Italy sent packing. Danes not best pleased; Die Mannschaft saved by a storm? Would-be giants left in the arena —French, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian— are they disoriented or barely revving their engines? The Swiss, and Austria and Turkey too, slip-sliding along, under the radar. Slovakia and Slovenia, each in with a chance. England, a sloshing bucket of nerves. Might Spain grow over-confident?
The world beyond is in terrible trouble, at war or with war menacingly near. A string of divisive elections loom.
In the daytime, I write and feed berries to a pair of blackbirds. And in the evenings it's the football.
Denmark vs Germany in Dortmund, last evening, was interrupted by the aforementioned storm, flashes of lightning and a torrential downpour. The match felt like it had two starts to its second half.
During the breaks, we viewers spent more time than usual back in studio, with pundits not of our choosing, their eye glasses propped on their identically shaven heads. They're meant to appear casual, the television pundits, even comfortable on ridiculous sofas, before faintly glowing electronic hearths. Grumpy and obsessive, they interrupt each other to repeat the same points.
After awhile, it feels just conceivable that the rain in Dortmund will not stop. And that this is how it all ends. Play will not resume. We’re stuck, fake hearthside, with these guys —these Eric ten Hag-, Ian Wright-, Alan Shearer-look-alikes— stuck in studio, listening to them warble on. Forever.
* photograph and watercolour by Kenneth Mills
I guess the Dutch are happy now? I admire the orange jersey, though I don't favor any particular euro team.
It's funny how football can act as company in a way. It goes on and on and round and round, stringing us along for the ride, a classic expression of the means being more important than the end. But maybe that's because I'm an England fan so we've given up on the end...