American independence day. Regular readers of this blog will know I often highlight the differences between them and us. Americans are taught at kindergarten to love and respect their country. The English aren’t. Yesterday, in the build-up to the big match, I even read on FB the comments of one English person from Bath who wrote that he hates the English and was going to support Ukraine! And yet, look what happened. England 4, Ukraine 0. Looking at the crowd scenes, it was the nearest I’ve seen to English people displaying love for their country. Football may be a form of tribalism - one ‘tribe’ v another - but if it gives the bottled-up English a chance to display brotherhood with one another and unite us as one nation, then it’s a good thing. The English may never be fully like the Americans in their outward signs of nationalism, but it’s a start. Last night in Rome, at 3-0, the crowd thought it was all over, but with Kane’s last goal, ‘it is now’.
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