There’s life in the international game yet

THERE was a lot riding on the European Championships this summer even if — indeed, especially because — the build-up in this neck of the woods had been comparatively low key.

With all the ‘home nations’ living up to their name and staying at home, there was no great emotional investment in these parts in the tournament in Austria and Switzerland, scarcely recognised hotbeds of football passion themselves.

England’s dominance of the Champions’ League — climaxing with that heavyweight Manchester United- Chelsea final in Moscow the previous month — had also seemed to lend new weight to the theory, much beloved of Arsene Wenger, that the elite European club game had become the new benchmark of quality in the sport.