if you have nothing intelligent to say

This article by Zoe Williams of the Guardian tickled me.

I had nothing intelligent to say during the Euro 2025 final.

And about sums up my relationship with football, women's or otherwise.

I missed the game. Not sure what I was doing. Possibly sailing if it was Sunday afternoon, but this might explain why nobody else turned up to race me. 

Two stand-out lines sprung at me from Zoe's commentary:

"or whether it’s because they are female that they can play on through astronomical pain (Lucy Bronze played the whole tournament with a fractured tibia, she revealed at the end)."

I mean, how can you do that? I've broken bones, and whilst I could perhaps imagine, in extremis, getting back up and making it to the end of the game once the initial shock of the snap had passed, but only because of foolish pride or, perhaps, because everybody else was relying on you, I can't imagine a whole tournament. These things hurt just so so much more the morning after. And even more the following morning after, and the morning after that.

"But when it got to the point that they were lying on the pitch making angel shapes with glitter streamers, I said the one thing you’re not meant to say: “Is this a women’s football thing? Do England’s men’s team also celebrate so hard, so inventively, when they win?”"

The same question sprung to my mind. But Zoe masterfully goes on to answer it:

" . . . nobody knows. It was before we were born."

I am honestly delighted that they've won. It's wonderful, heroic stories like this of victory over trial, mishap and tribulation that make me slightly regret I've never been much of a sports fan.