So the xenophobes are well and truly back.
And if Euro 2021 was being held solely in Germany or France, I’m sad to say I’d have serious reservations about taking my St George’s flag with me to a major tournament for the first time in 17 years.
Why? Because it reminds me of everything bad that has happened following England in the last four years.
Back in 2004, when the European Championship finals were held in Portugal, we had a high point of inclusivity when it came to going on tour with the Three Lions.
I saw women, men and kids from all ethnic backgrounds in it together that summer.
If that was the peak, though, then the Nations League finals which saw Tommy Robinson on the same Portuguese soil two years ago felt like the trough.
That was the first time in my life I’d kept my hood up walking amongst England fans and I fear that, if these finals hadn’t been spread out across the continent, we’d have seen similar instances this summer of bars full of people singing Robinson’s name.
The very fact an England manager has had to spell out in nursery English to those people why players take a knee is depressing.
As is the fact that many current and ex-players who are black aren’t commenting on it anymore because they are just so tired of fighting.
It doesn’t help matters when sports minister Oliver Dowden says the England and Wales Cricket Board went over the top in its punishment of Ollie Robinson for tweets put out when he was 18.
Just a year or so after saying nothing about the tweets which Andre Gray put out at a similar age for which he was sanctioned as well.
I liked a lot of what Dowden did and said about football at the height of the pandemic last year but he has got this one wrong.
What I hope now is that performances on the field start to overshadow the politics and the booing of players taking a knee, and I’m hoping England’s low-key preparations for the tournament means we’ll come out of the blocks against Croatia on Sunday.
But, I have to be honest, I’m really worried that we’re witnessing the product of burnout that comes when a crazy, compressed season meets infamous English intensity.
If we are, that means problems ahead again at a tournament.
I’m not making excuses because we all know the talent is genuinely there.
But I’m watching the body language of players and looking for smiles, sharpness and freshness and, bar one or two — such as Jack Grealish and Bukayo Saka — we've looked heavy-legged against Austria and Romania and, dare I say, a bit down.
I hope Gareth Southgate gives them a little mental and physical breather this week as we build up to the big kick-off but, as we ramp up into patriotic fervour, just be mindful of how difficult it will be for a young squad who’ve played lots of high-octane football this season to go to the well again.
I do hope I’m wrong.
But I fear I might not be.
