In the early hours of Monday morning my English son-in-law joined the 11.6 million who rose from their beds to watch England beat Mexico in the Azteca Stadium.
Two days later, the Swiss beat the Colombians in Vancouver. Not since 1954 has Switzerland made it to the quarterfinal of the World Cup. For the Anglo-Swiss members of our family (who know nothing much about football), this is pretty exciting.
Our 5 year-old granddaughter, who holds Swiss and British citizenship and believes in winning streaks, says she would like to get up at 2am next Sunday to watch Switzerland beat Argentina.
In 1969, I too was awoken in the early hours of a July morning to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. I recall the thrill of being awake, in the middle of the night, watching something my parents were watching too. It was this quality of a shared experience that remains with me fifty-seven years later.
Mike made it to work on Monday but more than 300,000 children failed to show up for school. England’s manager reportedly advised parents to “write an excuse and let them watch.”
I’m not generally in favour of truanting, but in this case, I’m with Thomas Tuchel.