At the Euro, the neighbors’ day is in full swing

And suddenly the noise came back. Europe sings, cries, whistles, insults sometimes, and all this in a football stadium, this place transformed into a white elephant during a pandemic, still present, but less visible. In Copenhagen, they are well 24,000 to exult in the spans of the Parken one evening of summer solstice. Nine days after the terror of the heart disease of its star, Christian Eriksen, Denmark blasted the Russian defense (4-1) to snatch a place in the round of 16.

Three days earlier, on June 18, in London, there was also joy. Members of the Scottish Tartan Army dance, sing in the underground and wade through the fountains, and too bad if many do not have tickets to slip into their kilt for the game against England. Even a 0-0 has a taste of victory against the big neighbor, especially if you know how to water it well. “We haven’t stopped drinking for forty-eight hours”, smile Simon, Craig and Stephen, who traveled from Scotland.

Since it kicked off on June 11, this Euro 2020 – postponed for a year due to the health situation – offers scenes worthy of the world before. Again, we walk in procession towards the stadium and we embrace this unknown neighbor to celebrate the goal of his team. Barriers and gestures are falling, Europe would have almost become a party again, with its nuances, given the fragmented nature of this edition – in eleven cities, in eleven different countries.

For Copenhagen, Baku, Glasgow, Bucharest and Budapest, the event tastes like the first time. So wanted Michel Platini, father of this homeless format. “My idea consisted, for the sixty years of the competition, to be able to give the possibility to countries to have at least once in their history the Euro football”, confided to World at the beginning of June the ousted president of UEFA (2007-2015).

The optional mask in Budapest

In Budapest, the Hungarian supporters received the decisive pass from the former number 10 of the Blues before the match against France on June 19. Some street vendors offer beers directly from the cooler, others have flags and perec, kind of local pretzels. The atmosphere is rather good-natured. A couple poses their daughter with a French supporter dressed in Obelix.

In a festive and patriotic enthusiasm, Fruzsi proclaims his pride a few minutes to see his selection stand up to the world champions (1-1). “We are at home and we want to show that Hungary can host this kind of competition. For me, it’s even more emotional than Euro 2016, where I made the trip to France ”, says the 20-year-old student.

With a maximum capacity of 67,000 spectators, the Puskas Arena offers a curious spectacle. While a message on the two giant screens reminds us of the obligation to wear a mask, the faces are exposed with the exception of UEFA officials and volunteers from the organization. The members of the Carpathian Brigade – this group of ultra claimed nationalism, close to the Prime Minister, Viktor Orban – have already dropped the black T-shirts to better deal with the heat wave and show off their tattooed torsos.

In the streets of the Magyar capital, we breathe in the open air. In May, the government lifted the requirement to wear a mask outdoors and, in fact, admits a certain tolerance indoors. In the second most affected country in the world in terms of the number of deaths per capita, it is as if the Covid-19 were already an unpleasant distant memory. But Budapest remains wiser than usual, the fault of the closing of the borders, which only can cross the supporting tourists holding the precious sesame for the tournament.

And, for these, the administrative or health constraints required are not always verified. “We did not have specific controls at the border, we just presented the identity cards”, admits Maxime almost astonished, his car registered in the North just parked in a street of very gentrified 7^e district of Budapest. The large supply of apartments on Airbnb in the former Jewish quarter has attracted French supporters, such as Maxime and his son, Mattéo. These Lille have just arrived from Munich, where the Blues beat Germany for their entry into the tournament (1-0) on June 15.

“It’s not really Germany’s Euro”

Same group (F), but different atmosphere in Bavaria. Here, the Euro does not unleash passions. The local police can always warn the back of their trucks that pyrotechnic objects are prohibited, the atmosphere is not for processions of supporters with smoke in hand. A few hours before the meeting, a French gendarme of the Franco-German operational unit observes with a benevolent eye a group intoning The Marseillaise in a cafe in Marienplatz. “Yes, he’s pretty good kid. It’s gonna be a quiet day. It’s very different from 2016 ”, smiles the soldier in reference to a French edition placed under high tension because of the risk of clashes between hooligan groups.

How to explain this sweet indifference to the land of quadruple world champions? Richard puts forward an unstoppable explanation. “It’s not really Germany’s Euro, but everyone’s bit. And then, we will organize the next one on our own, in 2024 “, says – in excellent French – this supporter from Münster. For the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the public is returning to a German stadium for this tournament.

Under pressure from UEFA, the Bavarian authorities agreed to open the Allianz Arena with a 20% gauge to avoid seeing Munich wiped off the Euro card, like Bilbao or Dublin. “The Germans are divided, some say ‘yes, why not’, others think it’s a bit of madness, that the virus is still present”, sums up Richard. It is especially so with the Delta variant, whose progression in the United Kingdom falls badly since London must host the semi-finals and the final at Wembley (July 6, 7 and 11), even if the British authorities have announced that over 60,000 spectators are said to be allowed to attend.

On June 21, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi went so far as to request the relocation of these matches due to the rise in contamination in the British capital. Budapest and Munich have positioned themselves as possible fallback solutions. And, if UEFA announced the day after Mr. Draghi’s statement that this option was ruled out, its president, Aleksander Ceferin, must for his part continue to curse this “Platinian” heritage.

“This pan-European Euro is not a bad idea in itself. Jumping into Lake Geneva to swim to France either, in theory… But in practice, I don’t know if I could do it, maybe I would drown halfway! “, quipped the Slovenian leader in an interview with the magazine So Foot before the start of the tournament. So far, the Euro has not drunk the cup, and it continues to – almost – swim in happiness.