Cracks in my facade of carefully considered neutrality

The English media, bless them, have been all in a tizzy in the run-in to the European Championships. Baffled by being in the relatively unusual position of having to endure a major competition without the presence of their brave boys, the question dominating the run-in to the tournament has been: "who should we support?" The BBC have even made it the theme of their promotion of the tournament.

Kind of cute, really. Coming from a country whose presence at these events is unreliable (though it was much worse than that not so very long ago), I know exactly how to deal with this kind of situation: if England are playing, you back the other team; otherwise, you just hope for a good tournament with some nice football. Support a team? How gauche.*

Except that's rubbish. Just look at that line in the last paragraph: "you just hope for a good tournament with some nice football". If you're anything like me, the football snob inside you comes to the surface. You find yourself damning those who defences sit deeper than 35 yards out; your heart (unlike that of many Spaniards) breaks into many gooey pieces when Spain snatch defeat from the jaws of victory; and when Greece won it all last time out, even though on some level you knew it was something to be celebrated that a team so utterly overlooked had triumphed over the big boys, your reaction was "..."

Of course, there are other predilections and prejudices which may come into play: a favourite player; the aesthetic appeal of a jersey; the bittersweet memory of that foreign-exchange student you really fancied but never summoned up the courage to introduce yourself to...

I, though, am a child-partly-of-the-nineties, and grew up a football fan in a home cruelly deprived of a satellite dish; thus my mind and soul could find illumination but twice a week: once on Saturday morning, once on Sunday afternoon. If, like me, you listen to the Guardian Football Weekly podcast partly to hear James Richardson's voice (and puns), and dissolve into a puddle of helpless nostalgia** on seeing this:



-then, even if they were start playing like Bolton; even if Daniele De Rossi decides he needs to scratch the itch in his elbow by attempting to decapitate our Cesc; even if you feel jealous at their flowing locks and perfect cheekbone structure; no matter how much you might outwardly grumble, there'll always be a place in your heart for Italy.

Of course, Germany will win the tournament anyway - so much for what I think.

*In fairness, the Irish media have run similar features, both this year (including in yesterday's Irish Independent) and for the last World Cup, though they do seem to appear outside the sports pages; one prominent chat-show host urged the nation to support Poland because we have a lot of Polish immigrants.

**It feels slightly wrong for a twenty-something to indulge in such childhood nostalgia. Is it? I mean, if so, it's probably society's fault and all, but it'd be nice to know.