Europe's Return with The Euros

We've seen America return in full from Covid; Now, you can criticize it was too soon - I mean even today the case counts in America would be record setting in like half the world. But we've done well to vaccinate half the country, far higher than that in many urban areas - the ones that have had their stadiums open their doors in full. We failed the world in the response but have rallied the world in vaccinations. Europe, well, they didn't. They were struggling. It still isn't at the level the US is - but they've finally got their moment to show the world where they've come to: Euro 2020.

Now, most of the stadiums so far are at most half full and generally close to 25%-35% full, but still after watching a full year or more of empty stadiums, something that was far more stark and noticeable for me than the empty stadia in the MLB or NFL, we finally get the noise, the chants, the vibrancy. And more than even that, we get it all across the continent due to some really nice accidental planning.

UEFA Euro 2020 (Euro 2020 from here on out) was always supposed to be spread all across the continent in a celebration of this being the 60th Anniversary of the competition (no idea why 60 was so important). Even after the postponement, UEFA surprisingly kept the idea around of staging it across Europe. It seemed stupid at the time, from everything we knew of the pandemic, the idea of choosing to play games in eleven different cities, basically do the opposite of a bubble, seemed absurd. In retrospect, its been such a blessing.

We've been able to see Europe's recovery all across the country, from the fans in England, to Italy, to Romania and Russia. All the host cities have been great so far, of course cheering fully for their home teams (particular shout to the fans in Amsterdam in that thrilling Dutch 3-2 win over Ukraine). But the cheers and the atmosphere in teh neutral games like the scenes in Bucharest for Macedonia vs. Austria, have been excellent. The scenes inside a World Cup or Euros is always fantastic. After watching US playoff games in the NHL and NBA for a month with fans it would've been depressing to go back to sterile empty stadiums, but thankfully we've avoided it.

I'll have more to say about the actual tournament later in the week once each team has played its first game, but so far the quality has met the moment. I write this right before Spain plays Sweden, and through nine games we've not had a goalless draw, only one draw period, and only two 1-0 scores. This has been excellent to date, no team seeming completely out of place (even Russia, who gifted Belgium two goals in the 3-0 loss) and many smaller nations seeming very competitive. This has been a lot of fun to date.

There's still time for things to change, but seeing International Competition with fans, with chants, with songs, with passion, has been such a welcome relief. Given the mess we're about to see in Tokyo, this might be the only truly international competition for a while, the world's first test case - albeit in one Continent. The stands may not be completely full, but the brilliance, the emotions, the vibrancy very much is.