As the fans crowd the pubs as much as social distance will allow, there’s been no shortcomings of support for the England players partaking in the 2020 Euros this summer. The football competition was originally set to take place last year but the decision was made last March to postpone the event due to ongoing concerns regarding COVID-19, something we knew very little about at the time.
But football is back better than ever and ‘it’s coming home’ is a phrase we’ve certainly missed! In fact, it’s been a great start to the competition for England as the team have managed to win Group D after a nail biting win against the Czech Republic with a final score of 1-0. It was Raheem Sterling’s second goal of the Euros that managed to set up a last-16 tie against four possible teams at Wembley: Germany, France, Portugal or Hungary.
England were two key men down as Mason Mount and Ben Chillwell were forced to isolate following a close encounter with Scotland’s Bill Gilmour who tested positive for COVID-19 after the second game of the group, however this didn’t affect the ultimate outcome. The decision to replace Mount with Grealish turned out to be wise as the ball bolted across the net towards Sterling for a match-winning header at the 12th minute. In fact, it’s safe to say that Sterling has been on his a-game since the start of the Euros, and this turned out to be the only goal of the game.
England may have already successfully advanced into the knock-out stages, but finishing top of their group is a great way to ruffle the competition’s feathers. As such, they’ll be playing the runner’s up of Group F – which is being cheerfully referred to as ‘the group of death’ – and this is where things really start to heat up. Will England manage to secure a victory against Germany? We’ll find out on Tuesday 29th June!