And that concludes the blog for today. We’ll be back today bright and early for more tomorrow. Meanwhile, join Will Unwin for the buildup to the game in Budapest.
Some detail on that Jamie Vardy purchase of an American soccer club from PA Media.
Leicester striker Vardy, 34, has bought “a minority stake” in the New York state-based club, which has not played a competitive game for four years.
A club statement, posted on Twitter, said: “The Rochester Rhinos are delighted to announce that Premier League star Jamie Vardy has become a co-owner of the club.
“The Leicester City striker has bought a minority stake and is excited by the prospect of being part of a journey that puts the Rhinos and Rochester back on the map after a four-year hiatus. This is a huge coup for Rochester and the Rhinos. Jamie is known throughout the soccer world and we are delighted that he has chosen to join us as a co-owner.
“Hopefully this fantastic news will give everyone connected with the club the belief that there are good times ahead.”
Rhinos, the only non-Major League Soccer club to have won the US Open Cup, announced in November 2017 they would go on hiatus as they sought extra funding. The club plans to compete again in USL League One, the third tier of the American football pyramid, in 2022.
Mary Waltz is here. “After watching football with the fans back it was difficult to enjoy the Copa fixtures with the canned fan noise.” Let’s hope this is a temporary thing.
More from club football, and an interesting piece of news.
The Rochester Rhinos are delighted to announce that Premier League star @vardy7 has become a co-owner of the club.#Rochester pic.twitter.com/iJsq6SHtw2
— Rochester Rhinos (@RochesterRhinos) June 15, 2021
Andrew Benton gets in touch. “Tom mentioned that you had hoved back into view (14.46), a phrase I associate with ships. Are you a bit of a supertanker? Happens to all of us in middle age. Or a light, fast, aerodynamic tea clipper type?”
Certainly heavier than I have been after lockdown, and that’s not just the hair. On the subject of “hoved”, this a few months back from our production editor on why it should mostly be avoided.
There is, alas, no such word as “hoves”. The phrase “hove into view” uses a mainly nautical irregular past tense of “to heave”.
Sid Lowe on the Spanish boo-boys’ targeting of Álvaro Morata.
The Finland coach, Markku Kanerva, has been speaking ahead of his team’s match with neighbours Russia, though thoughts return to Christian Eriksen, whose Denmark team were beaten once the game resumed on Saturday.
It is hard to estimate how the event of Eriksen will affect different people and of course we all have it in our minds. We are very glad that Eriksen is doing better and I hope regarding the difficult situation we will be able to concentrate on tomorrow’s match.
Certainly it will remain in our minds, even after the tournament. Maybe we will be able to appreciate the (Denmark) win even more. But it is not an easy task for all of us to concentrate only on football because there were bigger things than football in play.
It was one game and an important one, but we don’t want to dwell on that. We want to be fully focused for the match against Russia. We’re still on the road.
Ok, he’s not playing in *this* international tournament, but it wouldn’t be an international tournament without a Lionel Messi whinge.
From the Copa América.
🇦🇷 Messi was unhappy after Argentina drew against Chile in Copa America pic.twitter.com/1A81FB6wRD
— beIN SPORTS USA (@beINSPORTSUSA) June 15, 2021
[Another] Richard Williams gets in touch from Berlin. “I’m genuinely excited to see how the Germans play tonight. Admittedly it will all fall on Löw (if this side was already in the hands of Hansi Flick I’d be seriously tipping them as winners) and his tactics but going forward Germany have some great talent; Gnabry has a great record for Germany, Werner is nowhere near as bad as his Chelsea form might suggest, Havertz is amongst the best in his position and Müller is just Müller i.e. annoying but incredibly productive.”
“Even bit-part players like Musiala, Hofmann & Neuhaus provide good depth. Backed up by Kimmich who I’d argue is among the best centre midfielders in the world, Germany will be a goalscoring threat.
“Shame that Goretzka is still injured but overall their problem hasn’t been scoring goals, it’s been the incredible average (particularly for Germany) defence, however they still have Neuer to save them as he has done multiple times for Bayern in the past few seasons.
“All in all I get the feeling the Germans are being somewhat underrated so far, everyone is assuming they will be second in the group at best, and an underrated Germany is a dangerous Germany. There’s a reason they’re called the Turniermannschaft and I can’t believe they’ll repeat their horrendous outing at the 2018 World Cup. Can’t wait!”
Anyone else feel a bit more excited after that?
A nib from the Scotland camp where all the discussion continues to be about Kieran Tierney.
From Steve Clarke: “He did a little bit of light training and we will just see how he progresses. He’s got a chance.”
Anyway, a suitably fed and watered John has hoved back into view, and he’ll keep you entertained until you can turn on your tellies and view football content again. Bye.
Livening up in Budapest …
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Thanks John. Just diving below the line, here’s some interesting additional Hungary comment from BudaBrit:
If you want to understand the quality of Hungarian football, you only need to see where the top players got their football education. Pretty much all of the 3 good players have played all their career outside the country, excepting a year back home for Szalai the defender.
Hungarian football is about the same as the conference in quality. Maybe lower. The money poured into football has not been into improving football, it’s been into stadiums and other building projects, and one man, Meszaros, has built all of those projects at great taxpayer expense. Who is he? Viktator’s childhood friend and a nobody before the corruption of this government started.
Hungarian football is just as bad as it’s always been.
Updated
Ok, time for a short break, and to hand back over to the more than capable hands of Tom Davies.
What was that about club football? Oh, it’s been the Champions League draw today. It starts next month. Per PA Media.
Linfield face a clash with Lithuanian side Zalgiris Vilnius in the first qualifying round of the Champions League.
Welsh champions Connah’s Quay Nomads will take on Armenian outfit Alashkert while Shamrock Rovers face a tough task against Slovan Bratislava.
The first legs will be played on July 6-7 with the second legs the following week.
The draw for the second qualifying round will take place on Wednesday and features Celtic, whose potential opponents are Rapid Vienna, Galatasaray or Midtjylland.
The draw for the first qualifying round of the new Europa Conference League threw up several trips across the Irish Sea.
Welsh clubs Bala Town and The New Saints will face Larne and Glentoran respectively while Newtown will take on Dundalk.
Coleraine were drawn against Velez of Bosnia and Herzegovina while Bohemians and Sligo Rovers both face Icelandic opposition - Stjarnan and Hafnarfjordur respectively.
Hibernian and Aberdeen will find out their second qualifying round opponents on Wednesday.
The Denmark manager, Kasper Hjulmand, has been speaking to a news conference ahead of the Belgium game. The main topic is of course Christian Eriksen. Let’s face it, this whole tournament will probably be about Christian Eriksen, and so it should be. It’s a good thing that we are still able to talk about him in the present tense.
I have said that Eriksen is the heart, the pulse, the rhythm of our team. He has an incredible ability to perceive time, space and rhythm in a football match, (but) he won’t be there on Thursday.
We have a lot of other players who can contribute, and skilled players who can also find the rhythm of the match. We are putting something together that will be difficult for Belgium. I’m sure of that.
It’s totally OK if someone does not have the emotions needed to not give everything in the game. We need to prepare for an emotional trip to Parken,
It will be a special atmosphere. We have to prepare mentally, the players are used to that. What are some of the emotions that can hit us? It’s going to be weird to come back, we’re going to be met with a lot of emotions.
More news from club football.
Belgium meet Denmark on Thursday in a game under the shadow of Christian Eriksen’s cardiac arrest on Saturday, and Toby Alderweireld, Eriksen’s former Tottenham and Ajax colleague has been speaking.
It’s not pleasant to have to play them now. But it won’t be fun for the Danes either. Alderweireld added in a clip posted on social media by the Belgian football association.
It can go in two ways: it can give them extra strength, or maybe not. But I think we have to look at ourselves and approach that game as professionally as possible. And also try to win it. That’s all we can do. I have known Christian for a long time.
When I heard the news, I was no longer thinking about my own match. At that moment you are just seeking information about whether he is doing well,” he said. So not just me, but everyone was really happy and relieved when we got the news on the bus ride to our game that he was conscious and could even talk.
How they dealt with that situation was incredible. A textbook example. They have my eternal respect for that. But we will try to win. Their crowd will be 100% behind them. We will have to be at our top form to score points there.
The
Oner/
Fiver is here.
Ahead of Hungary v Portugal, here’s a piece on the soft power aspect of Hungary being co-hosts. It will be a full house in Budapest, the first of the tournament so far.
The news from the England camp is that Jack Grealish didn’t take part in training but is “in the gym working on his own”, but Harry Maguire is taking part.
Per multiple sources, Kieran Tierney took part in Scotland training, having been a huge miss in their defeat to the Czech Republic on Monday. The hope is that he’s fit for Friday and England.
File under: “I didn’t see the incident.”
Russia coach Stanislas Cherchesov on fan jeers when Belgium players took a knee:
— Steve Douglas (@sdouglas80) June 15, 2021
"In all honesty, you're talking about it, but I haven’t heard it. When you're playing, you just don’t really focus on anything else, you're focused on the game. Obv every1 can make their own choice"
One further note from AP’s reporter in St Petersburg is that Yuri Zhirkov is unlikely to play any further part in the finals after pulling up with an injury against Belgium. That he hadn’t played a full match all season for Zenit suggested he might be fragile.
David Squires is here! David Squires is here! David Squires is here! David Squires is here! David Squires is here! David Squires is here!
Remember club football? Some news from Liverpool’s website.
Plans for the proposed redevelopment of the Anfield Road Stand were given the green light by Liverpool City Council’s planning committee today.
The redevelopment, which was given approval from the city’s planning committee, will increase the stadium’s capacity by around 7,000, taking Anfield’s overall capacity to more than 61,000.
As part of the application, the club has also been awarded permission to hold up to six concerts and major events at the stadium for a period of five years.
🏟 Plans for the proposed redevelopment of the Anfield Road Stand were given the green light by @lpoolcouncil's planning committee today.
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) June 15, 2021
More on that breaking Arnautovic story, a Uefa statement.
An Ethics and Disciplinary Inspector has been appointed to conduct an investigation regarding the incident involving the player Marko Arnautovic that occurred during the 2020 European Championship group-stage match between the national teams of Austria and North Macedonia on 13 June 2021.
And here’s our story.
Updated
Spain’s explanation for last night’s damp squib? The pitch, and it did look rather dry and not conducive to their passing game. They made a tournament record 917 passes but coach Luis Enrique blamed the dry surface at the La Cartuja stadium stadium.
“The pitch didn’t help us, I saw players of the highest quality struggling to move the ball around and in the dressing room the players were complaining about it too,” he told Spanish network Telecinco. “We need to have better conditions to play our brand of football better.”
La Cartuja was built to host the 1999 World Athletics Championships, was given the four Euro 2020 matches to be held in Spain after Seville was chosen by UEFA to replace Bilbao as a host city.
The Sweden striker, Marcus Berg, was the recipient of social media abuse after his miss of an admittedly golden chance in last’s night’s game with Spain. Some details from Reuters below.
The Swedish FA will submit a formal report to the police after striker Marcus Berg was subjected to a storm of abuse on social media for missing an open goal in his side’s scoreless draw with Spain at Euro 2020 on Monday.
Many abusive comments were posted below pictures on the 34-year-old’s Instagram account after he skied a second-half shot over the bar with the goal at his mercy before being substituted along with Alexander Isak who set up the chance.
“I have spoken to Marcus just now, we’ve sat down and collected what’s on the internet, or what we can find, and it’s more than enough to feel that it has gone over the boundaries that we can accept,” the Swedish team’s security chief Martin Fredman said on Tuesday. “So the next step is to go further with a police report, and the police are prepared to hear from us,” he added.
Fredman explained that it was up to police to decide if there would be a case to answer for those who had made abusive comments. Berg’s team mates defended him strongly after the Swedes’ dour but effective stifling of Spain in their Euro clash.
The Copa América has been something of a sad sight, in empty stadia and the threat of Covid-19 ever present (just as it is in the Euros) but this was an impressive tribute to the continent’s greatest ever. (Alongside Pelé and Messi, before you start. And Di Stefano. And Sebastián Coates.)
It was 25 years ago today. Plenty more where this came from this week.
“God Save the Queen” prior to Scotland v England on this day in 1996…
— 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 (@RothmansYears) June 15, 2021
Gazza grins, Psycho turns puce and Gary Neville confuses it for “The Lords Prayer”… probably!#Euro96SilverJubilee #SCO #ENG #Euro96 pic.twitter.com/QJcaR3bXzE
Cristiano Ronaldo says water is the real thing.
Updated
More on that Arnautovic story, per the Associated Press.
The [North Macedonian] federation said [Arnautovic’s] outburst was directed at Ezgjan Alioski, who is of Albanian origin. Arnautovic’s father is Serbian and his mother is Austrian.
“We are always against nationalism, discrimination and all other forms of insults and outbursts that are not in the spirit of football and the values that we all stand for together,” the federation said in a statement released late Monday. “We will always stand up and defend the interests and dignity of the Macedonian national team wherever they play.”
Arnautovic scored the final goal in Austria’s 3-1 victory over North Macedonia on Sunday at the National Arena in Bucharest.
He wrote in an Instagram story that he was sorry for what happened and acknowledged “some heated words yesterday in the emotions of the game for which I would like to apologize - especially to my friends from North Macedonia and Albania.”
Uefa has confirmed that an ethics and disciplinary investigator has been appointed to look into the Marko Arnautovic incident in the Austria v North Macedonia match.
And with that, I’ll dump you in the capable hands of John Brewin who’ll guide you through the rest of the day. Thanks for your emails, tweets and BTL insights.
Anyway, so we’ve plugged pieces on France, Germany and Portugal today. Time for one on what you need to know about Hungary:
Ramsdale replaces Henderson in England squad
Just in, from PA, on a change in England’s reserve goalkeeping ranks, with Aaron Ramsdale coming in for Dean Henderson. The Manchester United goalkeeper’s hip problem has forced him out of the squad.
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Some more reader thoughts: “Low-scoring Spain is nothing new (though the Euro 2008 and 20012 and the WC 2010 teams did at least manage one or two per game),” writes Charles Antaki. “They’ve not had a reliable striker, maybe David Villa apart, since the days of Raúl. On the other hand, when he was in his pomp they didn’t win anything. So swings and roundabouts, or columpios y rotondas, as they most assuredly don’t say in Spanish.”
Which is precisely the point. Spain’s display last night was a point of almost comforting familiarity in a turbulent world. Could have been them in 1996, 2000, 2004 or 2018, although they did genuinely create more last night than back in those periods.
Meanwhile, on to weightier matters:
@tomdaviesE17 re your Gdn update. Presumably on Friday if Eng play in both football and cricket, you'll do They Think It's All Over-by-Over coverage.
— Chasing The Dragon 🏴 (@chsingthedragon) June 15, 2021
Any chance of a no-context shoutout for the magnificence of Bread of Heaven, 6 foot 7, feed me til I'm Kieffer Moore? ❤🏴
Personally, and given that the appropriation of old disco hits for football chants is definitely a thing these days, I’d have hoped Wales might have gone for “Moore, Moore, Moore - how do you like it” etc.
You’ll be wanting some updates from the other major continental championships going on at the moment, then, and a stumbling to start to Argentina’s Copa América campaign with a draw against Chile in Rio, which was preceded by a holographic tribute to Diego Maradona.
Updated
Reaction in the Spanish media to last night’s stalemate:
📰 A goalless siege
— AS English (@English_AS) June 15, 2021
75% possession and 953 passes counted for nothing as Spain drew blanks with Sweden in their opening #Euro2020 group match #ESP #SWE
Tuesday's front page
✍️https://t.co/549ixYVX6a pic.twitter.com/82BixerSlR
A disappointing night 🤦♂️ https://t.co/ITLaDxMIwR
— MARCA in English (@MARCAinENGLISH) June 14, 2021
And here’s that latest Eriksen story in full:
“Interesting to see everyone assume the opponent for the winner of the England group will be ‘Germany or Portugal’,” writes vsbain67 BTL. “The idea it might be France seems not to have occurred to anyone. I am expecting the German team to play well here but there are conditions: the right formation and a defence that can hold the line. They still have one of the best set of players.”
I can also see Hungary throwing the odd spanner in the works here too. They may be injury-depleted and the technically weakest side in the group, but they’ll arguably be more boosted by home advantage than any other side and have improved since Euro 2016, where even then they were no pushovers. My top unorthodox, left-field predictions so far are Hungary to progress, Austria to top their group and Croatia to go out. What are yours?
And some England mulling from Barney Ronay, on Harry Kane’s misalignment and misfiring under the system played against Croatia. Personally, I felt England looked well balanced on Sunday yet at the same time failed to get the most out of their attacking resources. Dialectics innit? And on Kane’s particular toils, Barney writes: “At times Kane seemed to be coming deep to pass to himself, only to find that he, Harry Kane, was nowhere to be seen.”
A Christian Eriksen update, from PA Media:
Christian Eriksen has revealed he feels “ fine – under the circumstances” in hospital as investigations into his collapse during Denmark’s opening Euro 2020 match continue.
The 29-year-old midfielder posted a photograph of himself smiling and making a thumbs-up gesture on his official Instagram account on Tuesday morning accompanied by a message of thanks.
He wrote: “Big thanks for your sweet and amazing greetings and messages from all around the world. It means a lot to me and my family.
“I’m fine – under the circumstances. I still have to go through some examinations at the hospital, but I feel okay. Now, I will cheer on the boys on the Denmark team in the next matches. Play for all of Denmark.”
And here’s some hot, hot content around today’s action. First up, Andy Hunter on Cristiano Ronaldo getting the audience he deserves in Budapest (even if, as he says, the murky politics of Hungary’s unsavoury PM have something to do with the large crowd permitted). Competing in his fifth Euros, Ronaldo needs one goal to become the tournament’s record scorer:
Andy’s been busy, because he’s also been chatting with Jürgen Klinsmann about Euro 96, Germany’s current situation, memories of Manchester and more:
Meanwhile Paul Doyle runs the rule over France, arguing that they’re even stronger than in 2018 but have their flaws.
Updated
Preamble
Morning everyone and welcome to day five of Euro 2020. Today’s matches complete the first round of group fixtures, with the holders Portugal travelling to Budapest to face Hungary in front of a large crowd at the Puskas Arena, followed by perhaps the starriest match of the group stages, with the winners of the past two World Cups facing off in Munich. France are undoubtedly favourites, given the foibles and failings of the late Jogi Löw period and some embarrassing German results in recent times, though Les Bleus have been doing their best to summon up the spirit of 2010 with a bit of reported intra-squad mither.
And what of yesterday’s action? There was an unmistakeable sense of teams living up to stereotypes, with Scotland stumbling with the help of a freak/genius goal and Spain having 102% possession against Sweden and still not scoring. All of which bodes well for a sprightly and impressive Slovakia, who deservedly beat a flat Poland and could cause Spain some problems.
Anyway, we’ll bring you all the latest as we count down to today’s matches, and much more. Don’t go anywhere.
And why not start the day by pouring the latest Euro 2020 Daily into your ears?
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