England, Wales and Northern Ireland have reached the last 16 of the European Championship. For the first time in the long history of these three associations, three British teams will play in the second stage of a major national tournament. If the Republic of Ireland is included, the success of the two islands’ combined efforts can be considered absolute. This historic sporting breakthrough comes a day before British citizens decide whether or not to remain in the European Union. Their teams are enjoying the European Championship, which UEFA has opened up to 24 teams for the first time in history. The UK has four associations in FIFA and UEFA due to its role as the inventor and administrator of football. Only Scotland was absent from the UK’s big European Cup party. The Scots have established a tradition of being at World Cup finals from Germany in 1974 to Italy in 1990. Wales and Northern Ireland face each other on Saturday and England face Iceland on Monday.
“The England and Wales rankings don’t surprise me. What surprised me was the Northern Ireland entry,” says Lauren, a former Arsenal player between 2000 and 2007, who won two league titles and three FA Cups with the London club where he works. He is a kind of public relations officer for Arsenal, responsible for forming cooperation agreements with entities and associations outside England. “England will give something to talk about because Roy Hodgson knows how to exploit a very good generation of young Englishmen. These are the cases of Dele Alli, Dier, Sterling, Wilshere and Kane. “They have deep full-backs, and they may lack a goal, but they are capable of handling the ball,” says Lauren of the England team. “The surprising thing about Wales is that they don’t follow their qualification stage and don’t take into account the moment that Bale is going through,” explains the former Arsenal player. “Bale is a world star, this season he became the leader of Real Madrid in times when neither Cristiano nor Benzema were there. I remember games like the one he won in San Sebastian. And then, at Arsenal, we have Wilshere, an impressive player. “He didn’t have a good season because of injuries, but at Arsenal we knew he would go to the European Championship in good shape.”
Having not been to the final stage of a major tournament since the 1958 Swedish Cup, Wales’ qualification for the last 16, where they will play another team from the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, has stirred up a sense of pride for the country, which has expressed its pride. That feeling is often associated with rugby. To recall a euphoria as great as that experienced by the Welsh football team, it is necessary to go back to September 10, 1985, when Wales drew 1-1 with Scotland and missed out on a place in the play-offs for a place in the 1986 World Cup, against Australia, a game Scotland won. Their last success was on November 19, 1975, when a Griffiths goal beat an Austria side of Prohaska, Wiltz, Krankl and Jara to reach the quarter-finals of Euro 1976. Yugoslavia soon ended the country’s dream.
Wales, Northern Ireland and England played in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, Wales and Northern Ireland reached the quarter-finals, losing to Brazil and France respectively. In Spain in 1982, two teams from the United Kingdom, England and Northern Ireland, reached the second stage, Scotland were eliminated in the first stage. They did not get past the quarter-finals. There were also three teams from the United Kingdom in Mexico in 1986. England reached the quarter-finals, but Scotland and Ireland did not get past the first round. Only 30 years earlier, Argentina under Maradona had beaten the English. There have been national team tournaments with three teams from the United Kingdom, as is the case now in France. All three did not get past the second stage. This Euro Cup is a landmark for the British national football team.
