Great idea, Rob, to raid post-penalties emails for blog content - saves us having to write through the pain. And there is so much pain. Here is a bit from my brother:
Yeah, the footy. I tried to objectify, but it put a bit of a downer on, bizarely, a barbq I had organised for that day. England had just lost on penalties, once more, and I turned to see a dozen friends and relatives engaged in various parallel reactions. All a bit of a blur, really. Why organise a barbie on penalty shootout day? Even Aaron was there! Aaron. Sorry man. He had a lonely job tending the sausages. Then George started trying to feed me cheesecake - in extra time! It was a seriously weird afternoon. By the end there was a hollow feeling in my stomach and a lot of meat in the fridge.
Of course, we all know that we will win Euro 2008. Easy. Lennon on the right, Hargreaves in his rightful place as the Anglo-Canadian Makelele, Rooney fit and, ah, WITHIN FIFTY YARDS OF HIS TEAM-MATES. AND YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THEY DIDN'T KNOW WHO YOU WERE, SVEN?
Perhaps what I mean by this is: anyone could have done a better job of managing this team than Sven, nice man though he is. Anyone. Another stat that needs quoting from the Guardian is this: our best player spent 47 seconds on the ball, only received the bloody thing 19 times, and made nine passes. I weep for the little feller. But he will be back.
I have a confession to make - I was realistic, I knew the outcome, I knew all through the tortuous post-Rooney period, the near misses on the break, that time it looked as though Crouch was going to control it, round some tosser Portuguese and bloody win the thing but he trod on the ball, when Lennon went down tackled in the area and we vainly appealed for a penalty we knew wasn't a penalty and which lampard would probably have missed anyway... I KNEW we were going to lose on penalties.
But... you know that moment in Ghostbusters, when they have to utterly blank their minds or whatever they think of will be sent by Zool to destroy New York? I tried to stop it, all I could see was defeat, but then Portugal missed that second penalty. And Gerrard stepped up, my own stay-puft marshmallow man, and I suddenly realised some small part of me was screaming "This is it! We're going to win it! Oh my god! And then, you know, we might in the next game! This is incredible! THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE!" What this part of my brain was denying was Stevie G's body language, which, like the rest, spoke merely of hope, of defeatist hope, rather than positive expectation. In fact, and I've only just realised this: our penalty-takers looked exactly like us! Like the spectators. Stevie G was barely able to watch himself miss his own penalty!
I could go on, but it is bed-time soon. And maybe this is for another time. For a cold beer this summer, for anyone who wants to dissect this not insignificant event further. For I have theories. Oh, I have theories. These guys shouldn't have even have been the ones taking the pens, should they? I mean, it's freaking obvious! Sven! Can you hear me?
Oh, I've jus remembered as well how sweet Ben was. He kept saying we would score and fulfil the prophecy. Whatever the prophecy was. The footballing sword of Damocles hung over us for over an hour - and we knew it was going to drop. Why? Why? Why do it? I know why. For that Ghostbusters moment. Gazza, six yards out, sliding in. Sol, rising above them. Rooney against France, Switzerland and Croatia. Sol again. There is always that moment of quite exquisite, gut-churning ecstasy when you think that this... thing, whatever it is, is going to come true. But the thing is - is it actually better to have that and have it snatched away? Deep down, maybe it is. I mean, what would we actually do if we ever won anything? What would we do? We would cry like fools, we would embrace strangers in the street. Yeah, I am talking shite, of course I'd like to bloody win the thing. But hope is a beautiful thing; maybe just as beautiful.
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