{"id":15644,"date":"2012-06-25T07:58:24","date_gmt":"2012-06-25T12:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=15644"},"modified":"2012-06-25T07:58:24","modified_gmt":"2012-06-25T12:58:24","slug":"euro-2012-i-can-take-the-despair-its-the-hope-i-cant-stand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/06\/25\/euro-2012-i-can-take-the-despair-its-the-hope-i-cant-stand\/","title":{"rendered":"Euro 2012: “I can take the despair. It’s the hope I can\u2019t stand.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I watched yesterday’s game with a deep sense of foreboding … that it just might come down to penalties. Again. Richard Littlejohn<\/a> obviously felt the same way:<\/p>\n

We might have guessed it was always going to come down to penalties. We\u2019ve been here before.<\/p>\n

There was a grim inevitability about England\u2019s elimination from Euro 2012 on penalties. And Italy deserved their victory. But that\u2019s not to pretend it still doesn\u2019t hurt.<\/p>\n

Every two years, I kid myself I don\u2019t care. Why invest emotional energy in a bunch of footballers? It\u2019s only a game.<\/p>\n

When England kicked off against France 10 days ago, I feigned indifference. So what if England lose? Life goes on. World Cups, European Championships, it\u2019s bound to end in tears.<\/p>\n

But England didn\u2019t lose. They drew with France, beat Sweden and Ukraine, finished top of their group and qualified for the quarter finals. Suddenly, it mattered. Three more wins and four and a half decades of bitter disappointment and under-achievement would be consigned to history. Football\u2019s coming home.<\/p>\n

Against my better judgment and years of experience I discovered I did care after all. As England progressed and last night\u2019s game against Italy approached, the pulse began to quicken, the optimism returned. This time we really could be in with a chance.<\/p>\n

To be honest, it was better when England stuck to the script and crashed out of tournaments prematurely, consumed by hubris and an inflated sense of their own abilities. We\u2019re used to being let down. We can handle it. As John Cleese said in the movie Clockwise<\/em>: \u2018I can take the despair. It\u2019s the hope I can\u2019t stand.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

H\/T to Nick Packwood<\/a> for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I watched yesterday’s game with a deep sense of foreboding … that it just might come down to penalties. Again. Richard Littlejohn obviously felt the same way: We might have guessed it was always going to come down to penalties. We\u2019ve been here before. There was a grim inevitability about England\u2019s elimination from Euro 2012 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,62,339,20],"tags":[570],"class_list":["post-15644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-europe","category-italy","category-soccer","tag-england"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-44k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15644"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15645,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15644\/revisions\/15645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}