In photos: the highs and lows of the Euro 2024 final

Football did not come home, but across London fans from all backgrounds came together to dream that it could.

It’s 3pm on Sun­day 14th July 2024. The front of Liv­er­pool Street Sta­tion, in the heart of London’s finan­cial dis­trict, is packed with drunk lads egging each oth­er on to per­form tricks for my cam­era. I’m wear­ing my ruck­sack stu­dio” which is a makeshift pho­to­booth I car­ry on my back to cap­ture por­traits on the streets of the city.

Beer is fly­ing through the air as thou­sands of Eng­land fans pour out of trains bring­ing them in from Essex and the sur­round­ing areas. Foot­ball chants echo between the sky­scrap­ers as they descend into pubs, parks and fan parks dot­ted across the cap­i­tal. I walk through trendy Shored­itch and Old Street, along the canal to Lon­don Fields snap­ping as I go. The crowd becomes friend­lier and more styl­ish as I move through the less cor­po­rate neigh­bour­hoods of east London.

Like many, I’m still not quite sure how Eng­land made it to the Euro 2024 finals. It’s been a stut­ter­ing cam­paign for Gareth Southgate’s Three Lions, with many fans express­ing frus­tra­tion at the stag­na­tion and rigid­i­ty of the Eng­land manager’s tac­tics. A far depar­ture from the South­gate mania that swept the coun­try dur­ing the sum­mer of 2021 and the delayed Euro 2020 cam­paign. Despite it all, every­where I go, there is hope. Belief that final­ly, after near­ly 60 years of pain, foot­ball is com­ing home.

You can hear the crowd out­side Lon­don Fields’ Pub on the Park from over a kilo­me­tre away. Inside the pub and its expan­sive smok­ing area, fans are squeezed in, pre­car­i­ous­ly car­ry­ing pitch­ers of beer to tables. Out­side a cou­ple of thou­sand peo­ple have spilled out onto the streets and into the park. Some have climbed up on fences, cars or trees, hop­ing to catch the cor­ner of the screens in the pub to fol­low the game. Oth­ers have set up their lap­tops in the park and some were just there to soak up the vibe.

A tor­tur­ous 90 min­utes end­ed, once again in defeat. A 73rd minute equalis­er from Chelsea’s Cole Palmer saw the crowds in the park with jubi­la­tion, putting Eng­land back in the game after Spain’s Nico William’s took the lead with a goal just two min­utes into the sec­ond half. It was, ulti­mate­ly not to be, with Spain’s Mikel Oyarz­a­bal putting a sec­ond goal past England’s Jor­dan Pick­ford in the 86th minute of the match. An ago­nis­ing­ly close set of chances almost reignit­ed England’s hopes but it was too late and a sec­ond Euro final in a row was lost.

In the after­math of the final against Italy in Euro 2020, which end­ed in a penal­ty shootout, racist abuse was direct­ed at play­ers like Mar­cus Rash­ford, Jadon San­cho and Bukayo Saka. The most extreme Eng­land fans have a rep­u­ta­tion for hooli­gan­ism but there was none of that on the streets of east Lon­don last night.

In its place was the mul­ti­cul­tur­al vibrance that’s at the heart of the city. Peo­ple came togeth­er to have fun, despite their dif­fer­ences — uni­ty and hope fill­ing the air. This time, foot­ball did not come home, but keep dream­ing, because there’s so much beau­ty in it.

For more Euros con­tent, click here.

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