“Rather tedious” was how ESPN’s play-by-play announcer Ian Darke summed up Euro 2016, while his sidekick Steve McManaman suggested most of the games “lacked intrigue, excitement and any real semblance of quality.”
I feel as if I must have been living in an alternate universe for the past two weeks.
Perhaps, I have. Thanks to France’s fine rail network, I was able to travel around the country taking in each of the seven games from the quarterfinals onward. And while I can think of plenty of words to describe the experience — exhilarating, exhausting, frustrating and inspiring, among them — tedious certainly wouldn’t feature.