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Beer clouds

Here in the UK the weather broke simultaneously with England players' and fans' hearts, upon the final whistle of their semi-final. A month of relentless sunshine and joy cracked suddenly, to be replaced by rain and a national sigh.

The rain on my street was frothy, and I am convinced it is directly due to the sheer volume of lager that had been sent skywards just hours before when Trippier's free-kick hit the back of the net. At that moment and for the 30 minutes afterwards it all looked like it was going to be a dream. Sterling was running about and looking dangerous, we were making chances and Croatia looked off form.

But then the creeping doom set in. We slowed. Croatia grew. They got more savvy. Modric was being all Modric, twisty and confident. He was playing like a man who knows a World Cup win will surely buy him immunity. Perisic was absolute class, wily, progressive and down-right dangerous. We slowed some more.

As the game went on and on, it became like watching England of old. Our patient passing became more and more like slow and dangerous passing, and in truth we watched 'plan a' gradually and continually fail for the last 90 minutes of the match. There was not a hint of a 'plan b'. Even as we chased an equaliser in those dying minutes, we rigidly maintained our back line, with 6 players in our own half for the majority of the time.

The harsh among the press will point to England losing to the only two 'good teams' that they faced, and essentially drawing with Columbia. This will feed a revisionist theory that the campaign was a failure. I am holding a more conflicted view. On results alone, the campaign is somewhat similar to every England campaign I've ever seen, just with a better start. But the process has been entirely different. The demeanor of manager and players seemed to filter through via the press to our supporters and it has all been what it is supposed to be, fun. Without oppressive expectation, it seemed like everyone could go into the tournament with a "let's enjoy it and see what happens" mentality. And that's what we did.

I couldn't care less about the 3rd place play-off, though of course hope for the players' sake that they win, else the rewritten narrative will become that bit more damning. As for the final, I'm somewhat torn. Losing to the eventual winners has a certain glamour about it, but I think I want France to do it. In part because I predicted they'd win and that would make me look clever. But mainly because I like it when heroes shine (rather than roll around like idiots). Mbappe surely is that hero and if he's got more in his locker,then it will be a fitting tribute to the tournament if we can all see it on Sunday.

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