The eight countries left standing at Euro 2020 aren’t the eight you would expect

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This article was published 30/06/2021 (1859 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

And then there were eight. And not the eight you were expecting at Euro 2020.

Is it “coming home?” I don’t know. But we know that England looks pretty good at home when Jack Grealish is given the chance to do for his country what Aston Villa fans watch him do for his club every Premier League weekend.

England is blessed with a generation of attacking talent usually cultivated in exotic soccer hotbeds like Brazil and Spain. Which is why the pre-game revelation of Gareth Southgate’s starting 11 sends the Internet into a frenzy like a Kim Kardashian Instagram post. But unlike Kardashian, most of the time, Southgate got it right.

There isn’t an England fan in the world who would have picked the starting 11 Southgate rolled out against Germany on Tuesday. And that’s why they’ve got one hand on a pint glass, and he’s relegated his penalty miss at Euro ’96 to be the second-most significant thing he’s done against Germany.

Sorry, Ukraine fans, but unless Andriy Shevchenko can roll back the clock 20 years and put himself on the Rome pitch, England is coming home for a semifinal.

The harsh reality of big tournaments is that great teams go home too soon. Usually it’s at the hands of other great teams. But, as we saw on Monday in Bucharest, not always. When a lack of luck pitted two of the top five teams in the world against each other in the round of 16, we knew one of the favourites would leave sweaty Seville on a Sunday night, dreaming of what could have been.

It felt a lot like a painful Sunday night in Lisbon 17 years ago when Portugal was upset by Greece in the Euro 2004 final. I’m not comparing this Belgian side to soccer’s greatest Cinderella story. But Portugal’s 1-0 loss to Belgium was eerily reminiscent. A relentless Seleçao threw everything at its opposition: set pieces, Ronaldo free kicks, long balls in to the box, Pepe elbows. Nothing worked.

As the reigning champions departed with their heads in their hands, Cristiano Ronaldo spiked his captain’s arm band, leaving many to question whether he should still be the focal point of this Portuguese team going forward. Fernando Santos likely will not be Portugal’s coach at the World Cup in Qatar in 16 months. There isn’t a coach in the world who wants to be the guy to say, “Thanks for what you’ve done, Cristiano, but move along now.”

There’s no true consolation when your team bows out, but at least there’s some comfort on the sidelines. Who would have bet that a day after the European champions were ousted, the world champions would join them?

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France finally played like the team we expected to see at this tournament. Well, for about 20 minutes at least, after “the penalty whisperer” Karim Benzema instructed his goalkeeper on how to stop a Swiss penalty that would have put France down 2-0, then scored two goals of his own before Paul Pogba scored on a world-class effort and celebrated like France had won the World Cup, again.

But the arrogance of Pogba’s goal dance fuelled the Swiss as much as it frustrated Manchester United fans, and what followed was an epic collapse that Hollywood writers would have struggled to script. Players miss penalties, it happens. But with all the success he has enjoyed in his young career, Kylian Mbappé wasn’t expecting to feel the weight of failure, at the hands of Switzerland.

For as good as the Italians looked in the group stage, they were a skittish and nervy shell of the side that won their first two matches by 3-0 score lines. Italy couldn’t hold possession against Austria, tested goalkeeper Daniel Bachmann on just a handful of occasions, and didn’t really show their quality until extra time, when substitutes Federico Chiesa and Matteo Pessina made the Azzurri’s adoring observers question Roberto Mancini’s motives.

When a team gets bounced from the Stanley Cup playoffs, we joke “they’re going golfing!” Gareth Bale is on the links right now as you read this. But, he would have been anyway. There wasn’t anything he nor fellow well-paid Welshman Aaron Ramsey could have done to stop Denmark’s determination train. The Danes booked their place in the quarterfinals having put four past Kasper Schemeichel’s Leicester City backup, Danny Ward. And Denmark’s fairy tale story is far from over.

Toronto Star contributor Brendan Dunlop is host of “Headers and Footers,” the nightly UEFA EURO 2020 recap podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @brendan_dunlop