Raphael Stevens

1’We are underway, and England quickly goes in hard on a couple of tackles. They are riding the crowd’s energy. More

England wears its years of hurt on its backs.It has been striking, whenever England fans have gathered over the course of the last month, how many have eschewed the current iteration of the national team’s jersey and chosen instead an older number: most frequently a blue one, flecked with white, that served as backup to the backup in the early 1990s, and an effort from soccer’s “gray period,” when the overriding logic ran that the color looked good with jeans.Strictly speaking, both shirts are associated with unhappy memories: the semifinal elimination by West Germany at the 1990 World Cup and the semifinal elimination by a united Germany six years later in the European Championship, both on penalties. But the jerseys are also proof of credentials, proof of authenticity, proof of having shared in the suffering of the two defeats which best define the inevitable and yet somehow cherished disappointment of being an England fan.Even as the country has slowly allowed itself to be swept away — a cliff giving itself to the sea — over the last three weeks, as the prospect of only the second major final in its never-knowingly-undersold history has reared up ever higher in the popular imagination, some of that spirit has remained.Harry Kane during warmups in a shirt that has — so far — not disappointed.Pool photo by Frank AugsteinThere is, deep down, a sort of irony to England’s excitement, an awareness that this will probably all go wrong at any minute, an expectation of the worst even as the country hopes for the best, that at some point in the future a new generation of fans will be wearing this year’s away jersey to prove that it, too, has suffered.And yet this is, without question, the best chance the country has had for half a century not just to make a final, but to win a trophy. It is on home turf. It is, on paper at least, more than a match for an exceptionally well-drilled, impressively slick Danish team, just as it was better equipped than Ukraine and Germany in previous rounds. It would be favorite in a final even against a young and spirited Italy.There is a distinct possibility that this excitement does not have to be ironic, that things will not go wrong. But that is not how England thinks, not really. All those years of hurt have conditioned the country to dream, but never truly to believe. Beat Denmark and that, perhaps, will have to change. More

Today’s referee is a police inspector from the Netherlands, Danny Makkelie. He will be a familiar face to England’s players, having worked their victory against Germany in the round of 16, and to others on both teams who have run across him in the top league in the Netherlands and various European competitions.Wednesday’s semifinal will be Makkelie’s fourth match in the tournament, but he has been busy in those, awarding 12 yellow cards — but no reds yet — in his first three games.Three England starters — Kalvin Phillips, Declan Rice and Harry Maguire — got a close-up view of his yellow card in the Germany game. More

It should not surprise anyone that Italy has been one of the toughest teams to score against in the tournament: The Italians often are, and they have conceded only two goals in their five games this summer, and only one from the run of play. (Only England, which has yet to surrender a goal, has been better.)Much of the credit for that — as has been the case for the past decade — will go to the veteran center backs Giorgio Chiellini, 36, and Leonardo Bonucci, 34. And Italy’s coach, Roberto Mancini, will be relying on them again on Tuesday against Spain.“It’s been a number of years now that it’s been said that they’re the best center back pairing in world soccer,” Mancini told reporters on Monday. “Their strength is that they want to prove that that is still the case.”Club teammates at Juventus for much of that time, Chiellini and Bonucci say their familiarity is only part of their formula for success.“Clearly when we are playing alongside one another we know each other’s game inside out and so things come very naturally to us,” Bonucci said. “So naturally you don’t have to necessarily think about all the other things you have to when you play with someone other than Giorgio, it all comes very naturally.” More

Today’s referee is a German, Felix Brych, who will be familiar to players on both teams from his work in the Champions League.This will be Brych’s fifth match in the tournament; his most recent were England’s 4-0 win over Ukraine in the quarterfinals and Belgium’s victory against Portugal in the round of 16.Brych has experience in big games — he worked the 2017 Champions League final between Real Madrid and Juventus in Cardiff, Wales — but also with gripes. He refereed only one game at the 2018 World Cup. He was sent home after Serbia lodged a complaint about Brych’s refusal to award a penalty in a contentious game against Switzerland. More

Spain might not be the best version of itself, and it is definitely not the version, at least, that thrashed Italy, 4-0, in the final of Euro 2012. But it still plays a very Spanish style, heavy on passing and possession.That, as our colleague Rory Smith has noted, can be both a positive and a negative — and it has been both at this tournament. But it will absolutely be the game plan today, Spain’s coach, Luis Enrique, said Monday.“We’re leaders in the possession stats, but they too are a side who enjoy playing with the ball, so that’s going to be the first battle to win,” Luis Enrique said. “But they’re also very good without the ball. We need the ball. We want to have it.”Still, history can be a terrible burden, and Luis Enrique has spent some time since the quarterfinals trying to temper expectations for Spain’s current team, which has the youngest average age in the tournament but nothing like the pedigree of its predecessors, who sandwiched European titles in 2008 and 2012 around the country’s only World Cup championship.“It’s impossible to understate this,” he said. “We’re not an experienced national team.” More