26 June ~ While marketeers will occasionally try to aver that Ireland has become “rugby country”, the national team’s progress at Euro 2016 continues to illustrate that nothing comes close to capturing the collective imagination.
25 June ~ At full time in Stade Bollaert-Delelis, as England fans and players celebrated Daniel Sturridge’s late winning goal, Chris Gunter made straight for the Wales fans at the opposite end of the field. As he reached that red-clad corner of Lens, Gunter, the most-capped player in Chris Coleman’s squad, gestured sternly at those applauding back at him, to keep their chins up.
24 June ~ I have just got back from France where, seeing my friends’ white-and-red regalia, people reacted by saying, “You will beat Switzerland, you’ve got Lewandowski!” Those people were probably referring to “Lewy” from Bayern as he’s now almost a totally different player with the national team he captains.
24 June ~ A day after Austria’s defeat in the final group match against Iceland, the country are licking their wounds. Finishing bottom of their group came as a shock for head coach Marcel Koller and the team who had qualified with ease. Of course, the so-called legends were the first to judge. “It’s a fiasco,” said former national coach Hans Krankl in the tabloid Osterreich. In the same article, one journalist wrote: “The Euros were Austria’s Waterloo – and now the international press are laughing about us”.
{youtube}WtTc0xlanvE{/youtube}