B82: How will I feel if England win Euro 2020?

 It was after the careful, confident win against Germany last week that I (and I assume millions of others) thought “Christ, England might actually, actually win this tournament, and how will that actually, actually make me feel?”

This isn’t – quite - the very first time I’ve thought England’s men’s team might actually, actually win a football tournament. I remember being in the garden at half-time in the semi-final vs Croatia in 2018, talking to the neighbour over the fence, feeling pretty sure the final, at the very least, was beckoning (Ha, a fleeting confidence). And maybe I thought it in 1990 and 1996 too, I don’t precisely recall. But I certainly don’t remember the thought of glory containing such solid complexity before.

Of course, England might well not win. Italy are very good. But they’re not Spain-2012 good, or France-2018 good. It’s a 50/50 game. England are good too.

I’m a sport lifer. It matters to me. It’s always mattered to me. And it can be more than a transient, trivial joy when it goes well. I still think about the 2005 Ashes, I still contain that nervous euphoria somewhere within me. I still rewatch Kelly Holmes’ 800 and 1500m Olympic double on youtube (an underrated contender for the most beautiful happening in British sporting history, by the way).

So “how will it make me feel?” cannot, for me, just be met with “it will make me feel happy, briefly, and then I’ll get on with my life”. It will happen, and then, in some way, stay with me.

In 2018, it was a bit complex, but now it feels exponentially yet more complex. Most days I think to myself something along the lines of “I hate England” or “I hate English people” or “this country is beyond repair”.

Saying that, my general support for English/British sporting teams has always given a little bit of a lie to the anti-patriotism I proclaim. I’ve been able to rationalise that supporting sports teams or sportspeople is not the same as thinking the country one happens to live in is great and loving it without measure, but that rationale is not 100% coherent.

The England football team have often been presented as the most Engerlish of the teams, whether rightly or wrongly. The JT/Stevie G era was very hard to stick with, as was the regular rank behaviour of fans. Are we the bad guys? Oh yes.

So, of course, this team is different, as we’ll get to. Though, it's worth saying, they’re not secular saints - this is still a bunch of boys, who will be boys.

Pickford, Grealish, Walker, Trippier, Maguire, Foden, they’ve all had their indiscretions. Here, I think, emerges an interesting nuance about the media space we live in, and how, counterintuitively, it can sometimes be a force for good. In a world gone by where the tabloids dominated the football discourse, some of those indiscretions would have stuck, and these players would be labelled as spoiled thugs/bad guys.

But twitter football discourse isn’t like that. It competes with itself to find the best joke for any situation, puts things in context if they’re a bit dodgy but not, in the scheme of things, that bad. We’re wiser now. We know the tabloids make decent guys seem like they’re terrible, and obscures how terrible some of the really terrible guys are.

So, these aforementioned guys are loveable rogues now, or reformed characters. 

Raheem Sterling’s more. He’s akin to a countercultural hero, a defiant, contemptuous figure who’s fed off their hypocrisy and risen to new heights. Then, Henderson and, above all, Rashford, are straight-up role models, enormously likeable campaigners for all manner of good causes whom no one can land a punch on.

And Harry Kane’s Harry Kane – smart, clear-minded, squeaky clean, always on message, unknowable.

This team’s easy to love. And, what’s more, as many who are ambivalent at best to English patriotism are saying, they do represent me, or some aspects of me.

Kane, Rice and Grealish (and, I presume, Harry Maguire and Conor Coady) are the same Anglo-Irish as me. Sterling, from Wembley, Sancho from Kennington, Rice from Kingston, James from Isleworth, Saka from Greenford, are from the Greater London I’m familiar with.

There’s a south coast contingent, a Midlands contingent, two Jordans from Sunderland, a strong Yorkshire showing.

And there are stories – Mings the mortgage advisor and small businessman, Shaw who had his leg horribly broken then was bullied by Mourinho, Phillips the Yorkshire Pirlo - a lot of them have taken a while to get here and they’re taking their chance.

And, of course, there’s Southgate, his backstory, the way he says the right things, the way he makes the right decisions in the way no one really expected him to.

So, on the basic level, if England win on Sunday, I will feel pleased for the team. I will feel they deserve it, that it is a reward for a good bunch who play international with a unity, an attractiveness and sureness of purpose I didn't think an England team was capable of.

But it’s still England. And this England right now, in its weird and awful state.

So, for all the good in the team, for all the knees they take and the rainbow laces they wear, the government policies they overturn, the fact that they are solidly, likeably, evidently not Johnson’s England, will glorious, joyous victory on Sunday not be some kind of validation for Johnson’s England? How can it not be?

Not just in crass, laughable ways. Not just as a victory for Brexit Britain conquering Europe, not just for Johnson and Patel donning newly bought England shirts and Rees-Mogg quoting World in Motion. Not many will fall for that.

But what people have fallen for - of course they have - is the joy of shared experience, or, as it is now known, superspreading.

This competition has come just at the right time for the notion that “things should get back to normal again”. Atmosphere, shared joy, is irresistible. People who’ve spent the last 18 months being careful and hoping others will be careful are rejoicing in the sight of these vastly escalated spectator events. It weakens resistance to Johnson’s recklessness that so many start to share that recklessness and associate it with something joyful.

If England win, there’ll be drinking, there’ll be hugging, there’ll be spreading. Goodness knows how much the numbers have already been escalated by fans, often young men, often carefree and careless, in this tournament.

Victory would be perceived as validation for the notion that communal spiritual health is more important than physical health.

Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe, as most are saying, this is just a brief moment of joy the good people of England deserve before it all gets dreadful again.

So how will I feel if England win? I don’t know yet. I’ll feel delighted on the night, but if, in the weeks that follow, this victory becomes associated with instigating a sour and chaotic summer of bread, circuses and plague, I don’t know how long that euphoria will last.