The Athletic

Hello, I'm Dan Bardell and welcome to the England show on The Athletic.

I'm joined today by Lindsay Hooper,

the athletics Ed Malian and Carl Anker,

bringing you the reaction to England,

getting off to a great style at Euro 2020

by beating Croatia 1-0 at Wembleau.

Decent looking ball for Phillips.

Got past one, then two,

then plays it into Sterling.

That will do nicely.

England in, Rahim Sterling's first major tournament goal.

Made in Yorkshire, finished in his own neighbourhood by Rahim Stirling.

Let's get straight into it then.

Three very, very different perspectives watching the games at our four, if you include me. Lindsay, I'll start with you. You're at a fan park. Where are you? I am, Trafalgar Square. They closed it down for England match days and it's the first time they've opened it up. Social distancing measures, though, so it was tables and the fans had to stay in their seats. There was a lot of mask wearing going on. And you know when that England goal went in from Sterling, I'm looking around thinking people are going to be jumping in that fountain in front of Nelson's column in a minute. It was fantastic, though. I mean, not the sort of atmosphere that we're used to seeing, which we can do on other England occasions, of course. But just to see fans together and seeing lots of England shirts all at once was brilliant. Yeah, absolutely brilliant after the last year in a bit that we've all had. Ed, Chicago for you. What did your neighbours make of you shouting at the screen, I imagine? 8am kickoff, mate. It's not the best for getting up for a year. It's not good, is it?

Like a child, I woke up like half five and I couldn't get back to sleep. So I just took the dog out, had a little think about things, you know, trying to get myself psyched up. Saw the team news. I was like, Calvin Phillips. Fortunately, I didn't tell anyone that I was uncertain about that because he had a great game. So no, it was good fun.

A mate came around about 8 o'clock.

We had some coffee and some donuts and stuff and then watched it. And it was actually quite tranquil in the end. It wasn't too much to worry about. No, I'm sure we will discuss Calvin Phillips at some point during this podcast. Carl, the best view out of everyone. You were actually at Wembley. What was the experience lot for you? Oh, it was fantastic. It took the better part of six hours on Saturday to get

my accreditation. I don't know why you wait for think they can have an international tournament

across 11 cities when they can't sort out simple queuing, but here we are. Wembley Stadium was

great. It was fantastic to hear three lines in Wembley Stadium as the England team are beginning to warm up.

The first 25 minutes of the game were electric, sort of with we're hearing, you know, it's only 20,000 or something fans.

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