Paul Gascoigne's goal against Scotland was the highlight of Euro 96. Photo: Getty Images/Stu Forster
The month before Euro 96, the future head boy of Winchester College, Rishi Sunak, turned 16 years old. It's usually a busy summer for teenagers, giddy with final exams over and looking forward to a few rites of passage. Perhaps the first music festival, illegal booze or, at least in Sunak's time, a legal cigarette.
Memories of those years become more vivid as we age, so it is not surprising that the last tournament, which was played exclusively in England, is of such importance to the Prime Minister. «I'll never forget the summer of 1996 when I was a teenager — the whole country was excited about the Euros,» he said after the UK and Ireland co-hosting Euro 2028 was approved on Tuesday. 'Now a new generation will be able to experience what it was like'
There's nothing wrong with a little nostalgia or the pleasure of a rare burst of good news, but unfortunately for Mr Sunak, the next Euro 96 is bigger will never. I am four years younger than him, and this tournament also became defining for me. But try to pass this on to the generation below. “It was amazing, we beat Holland and Scotland and almost reached the final!”
Football aside, Sunak dismissed the vague idea that the tournament would «inspire a whole new generation». . It's worth asking how much more public attention football can attract as it has inundated our once diverse sporting ecosystem. Try now to find a child who dreams of representing England in hockey. Most teenagers would have a hard time turning over a pool table. Squash no longer exists.
Of course, it is easy for the British to remember the ups of Euro 96. What was new was hosting the tournament for the first time in 30 years, or even participating in the tournament at all. Missing the 1994 World Cup meant that four years had passed since the failure of Euro 92, that is, six years since the much more enjoyable Italia 90.
1996 was part of the slow-burning arc of this World Cup. There was a killer draw with Switzerland, a fluke win over Scotland, peppered with Gazza's magic, an authoritative 4-1 win over the Netherlands, a penalty win over Spain (the less said about the game itself, the better) and a narratively perfect tragic ending. against Germany. As the mood grew increasingly febrile, the Three Lions sounded better and better, and Steve Stone seemed for a time to be a very inspiring role model.
Look beyond your rose-colored glasses and try to remember the rest tournament. Stadiums were often undersold, a lackluster Czech Republic reached the final and the quality, as shown when the games were repeated by ITV and the BBC during the pandemic, was terrible by modern standards.
Hosting tends to be terrible. clouds of tournament memories. South Africans appear to have fond memories of the 2010 World Cup, something not shared anywhere except in Spain. About the same thing you think is happening with Euro 96 outside of Germany and Germany. To the rest of the world, Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds sounds like a vuvuzela.
The biggest obstacle to repeating the '96 trick in 2028 is how radically things have changed in football and beyond. An old tournament joy was seeing exotic players on TV for the first time. Now they appear on our screens at any time via TikTok, YouTube or the video game formerly known as Fifa.
Co-hosting is also changing the mood, although the UK and Ireland represent a more united house than Euro 2032 (Italy and Turkey) or the 2030 World Cup (Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Argentina, Uruguay and, hell, Paraguay too). Only the petrodollar states are now getting the whole tournament into their own hands. Given that England have given up automatic qualifying status, there is still a small chance they will implode and fail to qualify at all. It would indeed be different.
A more realistic option would not be to imitate Euro 96, but to erase it. If England can win it, and they are at least rivals, perhaps it will finally stop people of Sunak's generation from fixating on Euro 96. Judging objectively, it was a very average tournament.
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