itsbeautifuloutside

Slovenia 1 Denmark 1

Sunday 16th June, Stuttgart Arena

⚽️ IBO Reporter: Frankfurt Saint

Channers asked for brief group match reports, so here’s my magnum opus. Doesn’t he also play for Denmark? There’s a real art to this, but I haven’t worked it out yet. Brevity is the thief of time or something. I think writing in the present tense will bring a real sense of immediacy, but I mustn’t overthink it. Denmark have got a player called Bah!

Pre-match, someone in the crowd is holding up a nice big B&W photo of the Laudrup brothers. They weren’t bad for their time, but they were still not the greatest pair of brothers to wear the famous Hummel kit. That honour must go to the Wallaces, Ray and one of the others, as they just made up the numbers. Ray was the real star. That’s why Leeds signed him and included Rod in the deal to keep Ray happy. He won them the title with his defensive know-how while Rod just scored a goal of the season.

I don’t know much about Slovenia and its players…Oblak! I know him, at least. The Şeşko kid is supposed to be good, too, but I’ve never seen him play. I should probably have done some research and got the sticker album.

Ceferin is stinking the place out again. Hopefully, they’ve not let him get involved in anything important because he’d probably appoint a clueless mate to look after it and wonder why it all goes horribly wrong.

Two keepers as captains? What’s the world coming to? Why don’t they just stay in their lane? Whatever next? Female commentators?!

The Danes have two ex-Saints starting - in PEH and JV. It’s always good to see Eriksen healthy and playing again, as I nearly had kittens when I watched the game in which he collapsed. He probably didn’t enjoy the experience much either, to be fair.

The Danes have started aggressively, belying the cuddly image that I drew earlier with my written words and looking more like the nation that made young Nazi POWs clear mines off their beaches after the war. I watched a film about that a while back. I don’t often feel sorry for Nazis, but that was harsh.

Höjlund has a boot off! They don’t make boots like they used to. Get a pair of Puma Kings or Adidas Copa Mundial or something.

I’ve never been to Stuttgart, but I’ve got a mate coming out in October, so I might meet him there. He’s a (Glasgow) Rangers fan.

The ref is from somewhere. Jonas Wind (great name) plays for Wolfsburg, and Kasper Hjulmand used to coach Mainz, apparently. The Danes are neat in their approach play but haven’t really threatened yet. Slovenia are trying to slow it down a bit.

My wife has started doing the ironing while I watch football and I just said to her that it’s like feminism never happened. It is Father’s Day, though. More on that later.

I used to have a Denmark shirt but donated it to charity. I know Slovenia is a very small country. The ones near Germany grow up speaking German, and the ones nearer Italy learn Italian. My colleague speaks about 5 languages.

Şeşko looks sexy, and I’ve just been notified that Eriksen scored a good minute before it happened on screen. What a lovely goal it was, too. It’s a shame for Slovenia as they’d only just left their half. Maybe that was the problem?

Slovenia broke from an offside position but got away with it and had their first corner after 20m. They keep straying offside but might get a bit of joy if they time it better.

Kasper Schmeichel is 37. He’s at Anderlecht now after disappointing at Nice. Nothing against Belgium, but he must be gutted.

Slovenia almost scored a classic own goal, but it was not to be. JV got his head on the corner but couldn’t direct it goalwards.

The Slovenia coach needs to be seen to be believed. He looks like he’s stepped out of an ‘80s fitness video and just got caught on camera picking his nose. Thank God I’m not a football coach.

You’ll never guess what just happened. Amazon Prime decided that I might be a bit bored with the football and decided to launch unbidden into an erotic movie while I was making notes on my phone. I’d added it to my watchlist and started watching it ages ago before forgetting about it. Mrs Y is ironing behind me and wouldn’t accept my protestations of innocence. Damn you, Bezos, you fiend!

One minute of added time…and it’s all square at the break, except for the goal that Denmark scored before they actually scored it. Slovenia are good at being caught offside but that’s about it so far. They’ve got a lot of work to do, and it’s my teatime.

I missed the first 15 minutes of the second half, and there was some VAR incident, but I’m sure it wasn’t important.

I’m a big fan of players belting shots at teammates. There was a good example here from Denmark following a brave save from Oblak, who Saints should definitely sign.

Slovenia stayed onside for once but missed the header. Schade.

Šeško - just practising accents…he looks tasty. Just hit the post. Slovenia have now scored but it’s not happened yet. Now it has. Good hit, too - went in off someone’s butt cheek or glute, as we say in the biz we call fitness. Exciting!

Or maybe not - it finished 1–1! That’s a good result if you’re Serbian, English or Slovenian, but the not-so-great Danes will be disappointed.

Serbia 0 England 1

Sunday 16th June, Gelsenkirchen

⚽️ IBO Reporter: Frankfurt Saint

Half of Eintracht Frankfurt’s old team seems to be on the bench for Serbia, along with Tadic. Kostic used to be very good, but I haven’t seen him play for a couple of years. They’ve got Mitro up front and SMS further back.

Ingerlund are playing TAA in central midfield. Everyone else looks as you’d expect (not that I watch England much). It looks like Kostic and Saka will try to push each other back. That could be interesting.

Just saw a Pompey flag after Bellingham’s goal. He’s quite the player. I’ve got a theory that the keenest England fans follow the poxiest clubs.

Mitro should have done better with a decent shooting chance, as should Rice when he was surprised that the ball reached him in the box.

Bellingham and Kostic just had a bit of a tiff. There’s only one winner there, and he plays for Real Madrid.

The Serbian defender caught up and did just enough to put Walker off balance when he looked through on goal. That defender was Pavlovic and he looks like a player. Sign him up!

Football’s coming home is already ringing out. Steady on, lads! How good is Bellingham? I haven’t seen him play much but he’s got everything.

I was just thinking that he might not appreciate being called a “Zweikampfmonster” by this commentator, but then I remembered that he played in Germany, so maybe he would.

Rice is good at soaking things up, isn’t he? I never really rated him before, but I understand the appeal a bit more now. If you’ve got Bellingham in the side Rice can just concentrate on keeping it solid.

England eased off for after going ahead some reason. Tadic should have set up the substitute Jovi for a shot at goal, but the latter fluffed his lines. He’s gone downhill over the past few years as he was great until he went to Real Madrid.

TAA went off for Gallagher, who is at least a specialist central midfielder. His hair is better than his ball retention, though.

It was good to see Tadić again. Saka had a good first half but faded and was replaced by Jim “Super, Smashing Great” Bowen. While I was typing that, Harry Kane hit the bar via the keeper.

If we are pensioning off Ten German Bombers, can we do the same for The Great Escape, please?

I was ebbing away as the game went on, but England saw it out OK in the end. I don’t rate Southgate, but at least he’s a steady pair of hands.

Slovenia 1 Serbia 1

20th June, Fußball Arena München

⚽️ IBO Reporter: Frankfurt Saint

I took the afternoon off work so I could watch today’s games and mow the lawn. I found I couldn’t watch the early game but it finished 1-1. Apparently, it looked for a long time like Slovenia were going to spring a surprise, but then Luka Jovic popped up with an equaliser at the death. That’s all I’ve got.

Denmark 1 England 1

20th June, Frankfurt Arena

⚽️ IBO Reporter: Frankfurt Saint

Let’s move on to the main event, then. As I left work at lunchtime I saw a load of England fans outside the pub opposite work. They seemed in good spirits, but when I went round the corner, I saw a gang of tooled-up cops at the station. They must have realised that there was nothing to see as they all trooped down to the station and got on a train out of there. Maybe there was more action to be had elsewhere. I was surprised to see any England fans that far out, as we are a bit out of the way. I don’t know if they had tickets, but maybe they were just there for easy access to the fan zone by the river

I was a bit distracted in the first half as we were busy discussing and ordering a takeaway. It ended all square, though.

Sir Harold Kane scored early on, but again, England eased off and let the Danes back into it. What’s that all about?

The Denmark goal was good. At first, I thought Pickford had been beaten too easily from a distance, but it went in off the post and was well-hit, too, so maybe he couldn’t do much about it.

Foden looked lively at times but never really clicked with anyone else. He did hit the post at one point though.

PEH looked well up for. I’ve always thought he’s technically limited, but he puts himself about and is still a difficult opponent.

TAA and Rice looked a bit porous in the middle but Gareth Waistcoat seems set on them. TAA brought it out from the back really well and then played a terrible pass. I thought he was there for his passing FFS.

I’ve never rated Pickford. He’s too hyper and doesn’t inspire confidence for me.

Moritz Volz is on co-comms. Remember him? This is really dull and I need to load the dishwasher.

Over to Ms Y:

Uh, very tense. Harry Kane is good

Everyone is very sweaty. England fans don’t look too pleased. At least they didn’t lose, lol.

I don’t really understand football, tbh. Yesterday I watched the Germany-Hungary match with friends (one is German, and the other is Hungarian), and they kept taking the piss out of the other’s teams which made me laugh. I don’t think football is for me personally.

So there you have it. 1-1. I’d call that a lucky result for England, as it could have been much worse. At least it seems to have passed off peacefully.

England 0 Slovenia 0

RheinEnergieStadion, Cologne - 25th June

⚽️ IBO Reporter: Frankfurt Saint

I have finally got around to doing this after being on holiday and then bringing some sort of bug back with me. It was most likely just a cold, but I'm going to say that it was COVID because it sounds more impressive. Some bloke behind me was coughing for the full duration of the 3-hour flight, so I just knew I was going to catch something. The flight was late to depart and a bit bumpy due to stormy weather but that played into my hands for the next match report that I need to write - more on that later if I ever get around to writing that one up.

I only caught the last few minutes of this (England's final group game) after getting back to the holiday hotel late. I couldn't remember a single thing about it, so I just tried watching a highlights video, but it wasn’t available in my country, so I gave up. Then something magical happened: I'm on my ancient "craptop" (it was crap about ten years ago when I first bought it, and I got so fed up with it that I made my Mum buy me a Macbook instead, and my daughter has now inherited that. It's massive and weighs a ton. It's like the laptops you see in old films that you laugh at. It's only got worse with time, but it still just about works) and when I ran a search in Bing (I never use Bing because I'm an inveterate (does that mean I've got no backbone?) pervert and prefer DuckDuckGo for privacy reasons, it came up with an AI summary of the game. Normally, I would avoid this like the plague because I’m sick of hearing of AI at work, but for once, it's actually proved useful to me. I will now augment the AI version with my human commentary, and no doubt the results will be hilarious and highly entertaining.

Apparently, the game took place during the UEFA Euro 2024 group stage. Who knew? "It occurred" (that's a weird choice of verb, but OK, let's go with it) "on Tuesday 25 June 2024 with kick-off at 8:00 PM local time". I was in Portugal on holiday at the time, and there was an hour's difference compared with Germany. I had no idea that Portugal has a different time zone from Germany - every day is a school day. I've been to Portugal before, but in my defence, it was only once, for a week, and about 20 years ago. We stayed at my wife's aunt and uncle's villa in the Algarve. It's called Villa Rooney. I'm not sure why, but they have met Wayne Rooney, so that might have something to do with it. His FaceBook profile picture is a photo of him arm-in-arm with Wayne Rooney. All the England footballers go to the Algarve for the golf and shit. My mother-in-law once saw Alan Shearer and said he was much more attractive in real life than on TV. My wife once saw Paul Ince and also said he was attractive. Anyone would think footballers are attractive to women. Said villa nearly went up in flames the other summer when there was a wildfire nearby. My wife's uncle (who is a self-made, multi-millionaire property developer and therefore a representation of everything I hate but not to the extent that I would refuse to stay at his Portuguese villa for a week for free) had to go out and hose it down while his wife filmed from a safe distance. My wife saw the resulting footage on FaceBook while dining out with a friend in the UK and showed it to her and her two kids. The little lad looked a bit confused at the end of the video, and my wife asked him if he had any questions. He said "Yeah, is your uncle really tiny?" My wife laughed because he's not - he's a big lad - it was just the perspective that made him look small. You'd have to see the video to appreciate this, so you'll have to take my word for it. He's bigger than Wayne Rooney anyway. I've seen photographic evidence of that.

"The game was held at the RheinEnergieStadion in Cologne." That's not far from me. I've been through Cologne a few times on the train but only properly been there once. I liked it when I went to a Bug Club gig there last year. It was at this old school venue called The Blue Shell and I was unknowingly carrying COVID at the time. I met the band, but luckily, I don't think I gave it to them. My Mum told me that she once made an announcement at Cologne station. They were there (in the seventies or something) visiting my aunt and uncle, who were in the RAF and stationed nearby. They'd arranged to meet at the station but couldn't find each other, and there were no mobile phones in those days. My Mum (who taught French and German) went to the office to ask if they could make an announcement, and the member of staff just gave her control of the PA). The seventies sound fun, as that would never happen today.

I need to click to see more details now....I don't know about anyone else, but I think this is going great and is totally seamless.

"Result: The match ended in a goalless draw (0-0)". Well, I'm glad it explained in numbers what a goalless draw was because I was completely stumped for a while there. I don't know for sure but I'm assuming it was really boring. We just passed by the Euro Zone with the big screen near the bay in Cascais (where we were staying) with about twenty minutes to go, and I asked the womenfolk if I could stay and watch it there, but they were hungry and wanted to go back to the hotel to order room service instead. I can't remember what we'd been doing, but I wasn't hungry for some reason. (Truth be told, I have tummy trouble if I eat too late, and sometimes it's not worth the hassle). Unfortunately, my wife went to order room service while I went to the room to watch the football, and when she came up later, she was in tears because the barman had been an arsehole about the room service, and she'd ended up cancelling it. You might think this is not football-related, but you’d be wrong, see, because the bar was rammed with England fans (who we know are all arseholes), and the barman obviously couldn't be arsed taking an additional room service order at that point in time. That's no excuse for making my wife cry, and this hotel was really (*****) expensive and famed (on Expedia, at least) for its amazing service. It was a total rip-off. Never stay there. It was the Villa Italia in Cascais. The last king of Italy spent the last 40 years of his life there. I wouldn't have spent another minute. If they'd paid me hundreds of pounds a night for the privilege. Honestly, it looks good on the website but some of the staff are horrible.

Anyway, where was I? "Significance: Despite the lack of goals, this result secured the top spot in Group C for England and allowed Slovenia to progress to the knockout stages in third place, alongside second-placed Denmark". I've never been to Slovenia, but one of my workmates is from there. I never got the chance beforehand to ask her about football but I don't think she's a fan. I have been to Denmark, but only Copenhagen. That's nice. It's very clean.

"For more detailed information, you can check out the UEFA Euro 2024 match report or watch the highlights on YouTube". I'm going to do that now so I can find out what actually happened in the game. Sorry, I haven't included that in this match report, but as mentioned, I’ve been on holiday, and then I got ill. Lisbon is nice, but we only managed to go there for one day, and it was ruined by my daughter insisting on meeting a half-Portuguese friend who was also there at the time. We did try and go back a second day, but there was a train strike, so we hung around in Cascais instead. I did manage to buy a few records from a little market stall: the soundtrack to Streets of Fire (which I fell in love with when I had COVID after the Bug Club gig in Cologne last year), an album by The Wall (only one person on the message board has probably heard of them - he introduced me to them) and Nina Hagen (because I haven't got any of her stuff and I think she's quite interesting). They love Cristiano Ronaldo, which I think is weird, as he's a self-confessed rapist, but they dress their young daughters up in shirts with his name on them. I can't stand the bloke.

Anyway, it finished 0-0, and Ingerland made it through to the knockout stages. Gareth Southgate still has a job (of sorts). It might be coming home after all now there's a Labour government. (Sings the theme from the Italian Job and dresses up as a crusader). That reminds me. I read an article in the Financial Times by this guy who went to watch England in Gelsenkirchen. The author was Jewish, and they were staying in Essen at the same time as the AfD were having their conference. There were protests, and the author of the article referred to the protestors as left-wing and "anti-fascist”, but with the "anti-fascist" bit in quotation marks like he thought they weren't really anti-fascists. It was very weird. I should stop there as I need to move and get a coffee. Over and out!