Welcome to the Euros: Week One Highlights

Excessive tea drinking aside, I identify more with my half-American side than my half-British side. But when the England national team is playing, you can trust that the kettle's whistling and I'm belting out "God Save The King." Forget politics, though. This is about football!

Supporting England (who haven't won the World Cup since 1966) is a little like supporting Arsenal. We tend to come this close without kissing any actual silverware. I guess the takeaway here is that I may be a glutton for punishment, but I've willingly signed up!

As an England supporter, I get lumped into the same category of fans as this classy gentleman...

...As well as this rando on TikTok who went viral for waking up at 4AM in an empty stadium in Gelsenkirchen, hours after England defeated Serbia 1-0.

You know he won't remember this match.

Let's back up though.

What are the Euros?

The UEFA European Football Championship (aka the Euros) is a 24-team tournament to determine the best team in continental Europe. Mostly though, it's an opportunity for pundits to pay tribute to Cristiano Ronaldo and his at-home cryotherapy chamber.

The Euros takes place every four years, and it's the second-most watched football tournament after the FIFA World Cup.

As of Friday, we've completed week one of the month-long tournament—and as always, it 👏 did 👏 not 👏 disappoint! Here's what you'll want to know.

The FIFA World Rankings are BS - just ask Slovakia

FIFA ranks all the European teams coming into the tournament. Of the 24 contenders, Georgia is ranked lowest at #75 in the world, while tournament favorite France is ranked #2.

I've always wondered about the precise algorithms used to calculate the rankings, but googling too much on the subject has left me more confused than when I started. Seems like it's based on matches played throughout the year, but tons of teams play non-competitive games?

All I can tell you is that I'm validated in realizing the rankings are complete bull after watching #48 Slovakia defeat #3 Belgium.

To compare Belgium's defensive issues to hole-ridden Swiss cheese is just an insult to Swiss cheese, OK!

According to everyone, Slovakia's win over Belgium is the biggest upset in European Championship history. OR IS IT? Do better, FIFA.

In the match, Belgium's Romelu Lukaku had two goals controversially ruled out by VAR. Belgium head coach Domenico Tedesco was classy in defeat and backed his striker, whom many feel has lost his fire. "[Lukaku] has been playing for Belgium for a long time and he knows very well how to score goals. ... He's a top-class player and doesn't need anything on that score," Domenico said.

Because it's football, there have been other upsets throughout the tournament—namely, Croatia's horrendous showing against Spain—but Belgium losing to Slovakia has been the biggest surprise thus far.

'Any Ideas for Masks?'

Above, I mention that France has been tipped to hoist the trophy. In part, that's because of their talismanic winger, Kylian Mbappé, whom I like to refer to as 'Boppy.'

If we're going to mix sports metaphors, then Boppy is like the Patrick Mahomes of European football: young, immensely talented, and wildly successful. A universally held opinion however, is that he does look like a Ninja Turtle.

And now Boppy looks even more like Donatello because he broke his nose in France's opening match against Austria.

Hours after NoseGate, Boppy tweeted, "Des idées de masques?" Translation: "Where my ninja turtle face mask at?"

Boppy's tricolore mask is especially "patriotique" as they say in the land of wine and cheese. He'll be wearing something different come match day however; UEFA has an arbitrary rule about masks being one color.

The new favorite?

Everybody was hyping the likes of France, England, and Portugal coming into the Euros, but can we say they've nosedived since then? France needed an own goal to get past the mighty Austria, and England...

Sighs.

In their first match, Portugal left it late to triumph over a scrappy Czechia side. None of this smacks of champions.

Germany, however, has risen to the occasion. The host team eviscerated a hapless Scotland side 5-1 in the tournament opener and won handily against Hungary. Germany is [Toni] Kroosing its way to the knockouts!

Spain are the only other side who are giving me convincing wins in the group stage. I know there are no prizes given out for largest margin of victory, but a goal fest is always fun.

The Surprise Performers

The Germans were never dark horse contenders, though. You know who are? Turkey! Albania!

For example, because I do not watch La Liga, I only just learned about a Turkish player named Arda Güler, who scored a banger to win against Georgia. The ball swooped, it soared, it conducted a full-on orchestral medley as it sailed into the top left corner of the net. Take a bow, Mr. Güler.

Arda plays for Real Madrid and looks all of 15. Google told me he's 19.

Whether Arda has a big career ahead of him remains to be seen. But you can trust that the Big Guys are watching. Case in point: Arda told reporters that Real Madrid head coach Carlo Ancelotti texted him after watching his gorgeous goal against Georgia. "Mister Ancelotti is motivating me a lot," Arda explained.

Much ado has been made about Carlo's perpetually raised left eyebrow—there's a Twitter account with the handle @ancelotti_brow—but Carlo has proven that he can do facial contortions AND spot brilliant talent. All at the same time.

Albania, like Turkey, has a roster full of players whose names all sound like sneezes.

But their biggest accomplishment might be tying the once-mighty Croatians in the dying minutes of their second group stage game. Urime, as the locals say!

The OGs (Own Goals)

In tournaments like these, there's an award given to the player who scores the most goals overall. It's called the Golden Boot award, and this year, some guy named Own Goal seems poised to win it.

While we've seen a plethora of goals scored by different players, Own Goal has scored 5 goals (and counting).

No other player has scored nearly as many. In fact, German midfielder Jamal Musiala is the only other player who's scored more than one.

What does this tell us? That more players are shooting at close range versus out of the box? Maybe. That football can be farcical at times? Definitely.

Everything you didn't see

We're all seeing a lot of the American analysts at FOX SPORTS, but there's still a lot we don't see. From fans rioting ahead of matches, to Kai Flathmann's broken hand (courtesy of Niclas Fullkrug's wayward strike), there's never a dull moment.

In lieu of the England triumph I've been promised, I've been scouring Instagram for behind-the-scenes content of the Three Lions at base camp.

And what I've learned is that the lads love to play a game called Werewolf, or Wolf. For any other geriatric millennials in the house, it's basically the Gen Z version of "Heads Up 7 Up." We were doing it first!

Wolf is a card game that pits a large group of players—the villagers—against a smaller, predatory group—the wolves. The wolves are eating the villagers (not literally, I presume), while a moderator is in charge of managing the game and keeping the identity of the wolves a secret.

The game was also popular during the 2022 World Cup, when Harry Kane told The Times that, "When they put that wolf card in, you have to start lying and it is not easy, so I think I am a better villager than I am a wolf—there are definitely a few who are better than me at deceiving people."

Wolf was also a team bonding activity in the Arsenal squad this year.

Wolf has become so pervasive in football culture that it even informed Jude Bellingham's celebration after scoring against Serbia.

Alas. If only that ruthless "Wolf" game play translated to the pitch.

See you next week! Bring on the knockouts.