England's Harry Kane scores his side's second goal from the penalty spot during the Euro 2020 soccer semi-final match between England and Denmark at Wembley stadium in London.Laurence Griffiths/The Associated Press
When Euro 2020 was simply an on-the-horizon event, CTV and TSN made a decision about how to promote it. All manner of advertising from billboards to TV spots highlighted three stars: Cristiano Ronaldo, Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappé. You can understand the thinking. A soccer tournament is sold on the back of superstars that the public has heard about.
It never is, in reality. Ronaldo and Portugal were gone before the quarter-finals began, and it was Mbappé’s missed penalty against Switzerland that ensured defeat and an early exit for France. Only Harry Kane is left standing as Sunday’s final match between England and Italy approaches.
Almost every tournament underlines the reality that a month-long competition is vastly different from week-to-week play. It takes a particular kind of team and player to survive until the final day. Superstardom doesn’t count. It’s the impact of journeymen players, the non-famous and the unglorified, that creates magic moments at a tournament. This Euro has proved it once again and, for many people, what will be remembered are the acts by players who would be asked for ID if they tried to enter the VIP zones at the stadiums.
Think about the semi-final between England and Denmark. England supporters will remember Harry’s Kane’s nervy penalty kick. But the singular moment, the one that upstaged everything, was Mikkel Damsgaard’s stunning 25-yard free kick on the half-hour. Damsgaard is a 21-year-old who plays for Sampdoria in Italy.
At Euro 2020, at last an England team to admire, one with European panache
In fact, you’d need in-depth knowledge of European soccer to know anything about the players who scored the most memorable goals. Patrik Schick’s long-range goal for the Czech Republic against Scotland became an instant classic. The Bayer Leverkusen striker took aim from a long, long distance, and the trajectory of the ball, with curl and dip, looked like the work of a master, but most of you had never heard of Schick before that moment. The same applies to Stefan Lainer, the Austrian defender who scored what was probably the sweetest, most technically difficult goal against North Macedonia. Lainer, who plays as right-back for Borussia Monchengladbach, floated in to produce an exquisite finish from the tightest of angles.
Interestingly, nobody promoted Euro 2020 by declaring, “Come see Damsgaard, Schick and Lainer, it will be just brilliant!”
If anything, superstar players tend to be humiliated at tournaments. The expectations are huge and, as was obvious in the case of France’s stellar team, sometimes the expectations are too much. Mbappé was barely noticeable in that game against Switzerland before the penalty disaster and, as that game wore on, several of France’s top players looked as though they simply didn’t want the responsibility of taking the ball forward.
It’s the manager’s job to ensure that there’s team unity, that everyone understands their role, and no one is going to have an anxiety attack. Didier Deschamps failed France as much as that terrible penalty kick by Mbappé. And Portugal’s Fernando Santos failed as much as Ronaldo did. Portugal’s 1-0 loss to Belgium, despite having 23 shots, encapsulated the issue of overreliance on Ronaldo and the manager’s inability to build a well-weighted team around his superstar. How many times did we see Ronaldo take those long-range free kicks, hopelessly, when another set-piece tactic might have worked? The idea that it’s mandatory for Ronaldo to have control of those set-pieces is absurd, and an indulgence of his ego.
Kane has got to the final game with England largely because England operates as a unit and it was clear from the early going that Gareth Southgate was not going to rely on Kane as a goal-scoring machine. He hasn’t been England’s outstanding player, that’s Raheem Sterling. Kane himself seems highly aware of his role and he’s been smart to play down his elite status. At the last World Cup, Kane made some apt comments about the opposition before a game against Sweden. “People will say we have better individuals and play for bigger clubs, but in tournament football that doesn’t matter,” he said. “The best thing about them [Sweden] is that they stick together on the pitch.”
Italy, too, has reached the final by playing as an assemblage, not a team led by a star striker. There are no journeymen playing for Italy, but the torque that drives the team is collective toil.
And then there are the exceptions to the general rule about tournaments not being about superstar players. While Euro 2020 has played out, so has the Copa America in Brazil. The Copa final happens on Saturday, and it’s Argentina playing Brazil at the (largely empty) Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro (it’s live on TLN and Univision Canada, Saturday, 8 p.m.). That means Messi-versus-Neymar, and yes, both superstars were fundamental in getting their countries to the final. South America is a different place; they do things differently there.