by the envoy
LEIPZIG (Germany)
“Mr. Kane, sorry if the question may seem impertinent to you, but would you, who like nature, like to come and play in our team, even if in the seventh German category?”. We are not joking aside but it is one of the funny stories of this European Championship, which in addition to feats, smiles, tears and own goals gives us funny (and even less) anecdotes. Like the episode that happened to the English champion during the press conference. In fact, it happens that after the press conference the journalist Jonas Greiner, who showed up wearing a SG Lauscha/Neuhaus shirt (indeed, a team that plays in a championship equivalent to our First Category) hands the attacker a contract to sign. Kane smiles, autographs the uniform and then is taken by surprise: “You said you like the landscapes here, why don’t you think about staying? A 7th division team would gladly take you.” Harry Kane plays along and replies: “I need to talk to my agent, let’s see what we can do. There are many good golf courses here…”. Color note: the signed shirt ended up at auction for charity.
From one champion to another, this time we’re talking about Cristiano Ronaldo: what happened in the second half of Turkey-Portugal did not go unnoticed by the Portuguese press. Despite a lifetime sponsorship and the creation of an exclusive line of clothing, the very demanding CR7 was not at all satisfied with his Mercurial Dream Speed, tailor-made shoes: so in the second half he changed shoes, taking those of teammate Bruno Fernandes .
The record numbers of Toni Kroos are also in the news, as after 8 years (European Championship 2016) he completed the same number of passes (323) in the group stage of a European Championship. Going into details: the German midfielder recorded a passing accuracy of 95.28% in the first 3 matches of the tournament. And even in the complicated match against Switzerland he produced yet another exceptional performance: given that he was the player with the most touches (127), with the most passes completed (98), with the most passes into the opposing midfield (28), with the most crosses (9), with more chances created (4), Years pass but the talent remains.
However, it is a European Championship to forget, at least so far, that of the former Juventus defender De Ligt, who has so far watched the tournament from the Netherlands bench. After the first two days, the Bayern Munich centre-back didn’t put even a minute into his legs as he was overtaken in coach Koeman’s hierarchy by Inter player de Vrij. So he decided to rely on a psychologist: “Certain moments can be hard and talking about it with someone can help you feel lighter and ready to put your energy back on the pitch, rather than exhausting it with a thousand negative thoughts – declared De Ligt from the Dutch retreat -. I train myself to train better. I am relatively calm: I have the feeling that during this tournament something will happen, and it will allow me to demonstrate that I am still an important player.”
Giulio Mola
