By Kehinde Okeowo
Hungry Britons are up against the Italians, the masters with a catenaccio that has won them four World Cup laurels and a Europeans title, who will be no pushovers in Wembley, despite the home advantage of the Three Lions.
From Buckingham palace to the man on the street, all England are chanting “football is coming home”, to quench their thirst for a trophy in a major football completion, the final of which they have not reached or won in 55 years.
Azzurri of Italy, who defeated the La Furia Roja of Spain, in a keenly contested match which was decided by penalty shoot-out, advanced to the final of 16th edition of UEFA European Football Championship after Luis Enrique’s boys had dominated the game.
Their opponent in the final, England, made it pass one of the dark horses, Denmark, after winning 2-1 via a penalty kick, which was scored on the second attempt by English captain, Harry Kane, after it was initially saved by Kasper Schmeichel, in the first half of extra time.
The man who has been picked to officiate the final game by the UEFA Referees Committee is a 48 years old Dutchman , Bjorn Kulipers, who is a UEFA Elite group referee and an international referee listed by FIFA since 2006.
He is quite experienced and has officiated a Champions League final, two Europa League finals and two UEFA age grade finals. He will be aided by two Dutch referee assistants, Erwin Zeinstra and Sander van Roekel, while the game’s fourth official is Spanish, Carlos Del Cerro Grande.
To get to the final, England topped Group D with 7 points having won two games and drawn one, it then defeated Germany 2-0 in a tough encounter in the round of 16, before trashing Ukraine 4-0 in the quarter final and controversially defeating Denmark in the semifinal.
Italy won all games to get 9 maximum points in Group A and topped the group, before scaling the Austrian huddle after extra time in the round of 16. It won the highly rated Belgian team 2-1 in the quarterfinals and beat Spain on penalty to reach the final.
British goal tender, Jordan Pickford, has effectively won the golden glove award with 5 clean sheets because his only challenger, Gialuigi Donnarumma, who is currently on 3 clean sheets, can no longer reach his tally with one more game to go.
The race for the golden boot is between Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal and Harry Kane of England who have scored 5 goals with one goal assist and 4 goals with no goal assist respectively. Kane needs 2 goals in the final game to topple Ronaldo who currently tops the goal scorers’ chart.
There will be no curtain raiser in Euro 2020, as the competition does recognize third place play-off like other international football competitions, therefore, Denmark and Spain who lost at the semifinals headed home like every other team that had been eliminated earlier.
While the Dutch are basking in the euphoria of the rear privilege of having one of their own as the center referee of a EUFA Euro final, the English players are about to make history and may never get a better opportunity to win the cup than a final at home in front of their passionate supporter. The Italians, who were runners up in 2000 and 2012, will be hoping to be third time lucky.
