#It'sComingHome (er, Rome) - The Euro Final on Twitter

First, Eurovision:

And now the Euro Final:


Confession: I am half Italian. My Italian half downloaded the ESPN+ app and got a monthly subscription so I could watch the Euro 2020 Final this afternoon. I took what I thought would be quick 90-minute afternoon break but what actually ended up being 123-plus nailbiting minutes with overtime and a penalty shootout--and I mean "nailbiting" literally here--the Wembley Stadium cameras kept panning to various England fans (men, women, and children) chewing at their fingernails. 

The match started with a crazy, unheard-of goal from England. And then things sort of fell apart from there. 

You can kind of see the declension from then on, i.e., from that unique goal to the Italians' shootout victory, in the royal family's body language and facial expressions, below (the reactional divide captured here by Twitter user lily NAT IS COMING BACK!!): 

Italy had a terrible year with the pandemic. Not to say that England hasn't, either. But England also had #Brexit--there's more than a bit of irony in that Euro "Final" title. The Washington Post featured this headline ahead of the game today: 
It wasn't a pretty kind of fandom--it was a dangerous, brutal, and (trigger warning) violent kind of "fandom," as fans from both sides noted on Twitter. 

It was tinged in post-Brexit politics--and for the Italians, too: 



And even for those such as Twitter user rageart, who admitted to not "even car[ing] abt football":

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