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Memories of two tournaments: Euro 2016 and Copa America

Roar Rookie
22nd July, 2016
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Is Ronaldo destined to return to England? (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
Roar Rookie
22nd July, 2016
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The end of the UEFA 2016 European Championships in France has taken the zing out life for millions of football aficionados all over the world.

The wonderful summer of football entertainment starting with the finals of UEFA club competitions and continuing with the Copa America has finally come to an end with Euro concluding in Paris earlier this month with unlikely winners Portugal winning their first ever major title.

Usually, there’s less comparison between big tournaments of the same sport due to their distance from each other.

In football, be it the World Cup, European Championships or the Copa America, the recurrence occurs in separate years, so that they don’t clash with each other and end up vying for the attention of television audiences’ worldwide. Of course, the World Cup trumps both.

However, the major chunk of the television audiences of either tournaments comprises the neutrals, from Asia and Africa, the continents having the major share of the world population, and not to forget Oceania.

Hence, a clash of the tournaments will ensure diversion of multi-million dollar television revenue. For this reason, these tourneys rarely clashed.

Nevertheless, 2016 marked 100 years of the Copa America – the Centenario of the world’s oldest international continental football tournament. So, the tournament was staged in a neutral venue of the USA and for the second time ever it clashed with the European Championships (the first time being in 2004).

Entertaining Football
By the time Euro 2016 took off, the 2016 Copa was in full swing – filled with goals and upsets, so much so that the European competition was quite unappealing for a while. The games were often drab and cagey, the crowd more formal, the atmosphere on the whole uninspiring. The story of Iceland and its terrific crowd really changed things.

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But the flair of the Copa – of its distinctive crowd, music, locale, players and matches was clearly missing here – a flair I’d taken to and got used to.

Copa America felt very much like the World Cup in Brazil – elegant, vivacious and exotic – the pre-match panning and zooming in on the locations on digital maps, followed by the interesting video clips of beautiful American cities, educating us, albeit briefly, about the tourist attractions and how life flowed there, and, the games, most of which were high-intensity affairs.

All these and many other such details made the Copa Centenario a grand success. The oft-repeated talk of European based players being tired after a long and arduous season with their clubs and leagues, and this affecting their performances in Euro 2016 were nowhere to be seen in the Copa, where Alexis Sanchez, Vidal, Mascherano, Higuaín, Messi and others shone at their best, making the Centenario tournament memorable for another centenary.

Meanwhile, in the EUROs not all of the big players justified their billing as the crème de la crème of world football – Zlatan Ibrahimović, Pogba, and the string of talented players from Belgium, Spain and England were below par.

The only notable exceptions being the likes of the La Liga brigade of Pepe, Gareth Bale, Antoine Griezmann and Cristiano Ronaldo, the latter waking up from slumber late in the tournament.

Dimitri Payet was one of the few EPL players to impress. The French stumbling in the final hurdle makes one think if French coach Deschamps dropping the talented, experienced and recent Champions League winner Karim Benzema for off-field reasons hurt them in the long run. Imagine what a lethal duo Benzema and Griezmann would have made with Olivier Giroud providing back up.

Portugal’s win, though unexpected seemed to fulfil the pattern of the year where the favourites took a beating. If we look back at all the four major finals of the summer – the Europa League, Champions League, the Copa America and now Euro 2016 – all the favourites have gone on to lose contrary to expectations of the experts and the general public.

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Very few expected Seville to beat Liverpool, or the well-oiled machine of Atletico Madrid to lose to arch rivals Real. We are all familiar now with Leicester beating the odds to win the EPL as well.

I firmly believe fate had arranged for redemption of Argentina’s prestige by allowing them an opportunity to avenge last year’s Copa defeat to Chile, but then we know what happened – the image of the bearded Messi crying is unforgettable.

And who’d have bet against the French not winning yet another major final against the Portuguese on home soil, in front of their boisterous fans, as history was always with them the last couple of times they hosted major events of the World Cup and European Championships.

But, then, the pattern this year has been of the favourites biting the dust and that was reaffirmed in the European Champions final.

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