On Day 1 of the knockout round — a day that feels like the distant past but was, in fact, Saturday — Denmark swept past Wales, and Italy edged out Austria. On Day 2, the Czech Republic stunned the Netherlands in Euro 2020’s first real shock, and Belgium beat Portugal in the tournament’s first consequential meeting of heavyweights. What followed, on Day 3, could — at a considerable stretch — be presented as a natural extension of all that, as if the tournament had been building to this, in much the same way as the works of Shakespeare are a natural extension of the accounting ledgers in the city of Ur, or the way the miracle of human life is a natural extension of the anaerobic reproduction of single-celled organisms. Perhaps the best way of phrasing it is this: Twenty minutes into the first game of the day, Spain’s meeting with Croatia, the prodigiously gifted Spanish midfielder Pedri scored an own goal — through no fault of his own — from just inside his own half. Eight hours later, that was not anywhere close to being the most remarkable thing that had happened.

Source: New York Times June 28, 2021 22:15 UTC