David Runciman

Most people have a favourite team or, failing that, a favourite player. I’ve never been sure about those but I have always had a favourite goal, at least since 1998. Dennis Bergkamp’s last-minute winner for Holland against Argentina in that year’s World Cup quarter-final contained everything you could want: a momentous occasion, heart-stopping drama and aesthetic perfection. Bergkamp took Frank de Boer’s fifty-yard pass out of the air, controlled it with one touch, left the Argentina no. 2 for dead with his second and nonchalantly flicked it home. Then he lay on his back while the world went mad. I can still remember the sense of wonder seeing it in real time. It never grows old. Now that goal has a rival.

It took about as long for Roy Hodgson’s whole world to fall apart as it did for David Cameron’s. The evening began full of false promise and hubristic talk of the tougher challenges ahead. The early Rooney penalty seemed to confirm that there was nothing to worry about, just like those fake exit polls showing Remain comfortably ahead. The betting markets tightened. Then, in rapid succession, came the double blow: it was 12 minutes from Sigurdsson’s equaliser to Sigthorsson’s second; 16 minutes from the result in Newcastle showing the two sides neck and neck to the result from Sunderland showing Leave alarmingly ahead.

Why did he do it? Why take such a needlessly cavalier risk with the country’s future and his own? Maybe he thought his luck would hold. Well, it didn’t. It’s hard to see a path back to the European summit from here. Yes, facing Iceland rather than Portugal turns out to be a slice of good fortune. But then it’s likely to be France in the quarters, and if it comes to that Germany or Spain in the semis. The final seems a very long way off. And all because Hodgson took a gamble against Slovakia, in the mistaken belief that he was in control of his own destiny. I never had Hodgson down as a Cameron-style chancer.

I haven’t watched every game, and I may not have been paying attention, but I don’t think I’ve seen a single cutaway to a non-white face in the crowd at this tournament. I was particularly struck by this during the match between Croatia and the Czech Republic, when all the players were white too, along with the coaches and the officials. (There are no non-white referees. Does UEFA ever think about things like this? I doubt it.) That game was one of an increasing number at which violence has erupted in the stands. Croatia’s fans are notoriously racist but there were no ethnic minorities around for them to target; they beat each other up instead. Euro 2016 has been characterised by its white-on-white violence.

Those of us stuck at home and unable to enjoy the pleasures of fraternising on the streets of Marseille or Lens have to make do with what we can glean from the TV coverage. Even then it’s possible to get a strong feel for what divides Europe as well as what unites us. France, it turns out, is a foreign country: they do things differently there. Specifically, the French seem to have a different idea of what action replays are for.