I should have woken up last Monday feeling delighted about Italy’s penalty shoot-out defeat of England in the Euro 2020 final the night before.

Instead, inevitably the headlines focused on the disgusting racial abuse of the three English players who missed penalties.

I watched the game hoping for an Italy win. That is not a shock revelation for an Irish person. In fact, it is boringly predictable. But not even if I punched myself for 90 minutes could I ever cheer for England. It’s nothing to do with Irish history and all that.

So much of the jingoism, the hooligan element and, of course, the racism is just Brexit wrapped up in a football shirt, in my opinion

It’s just that, from as long as I can remember, I have had a healthy dislike of the English football team. And we can point to the many reasons why it is easy not to love all the trappings embedded in English soccer. So much of the jingoism, the hooligan element and, of course, the racism is just Brexit wrapped up in a football shirt, in my opinion.

Anyway, how could I wish for something that would make Boris Johnson happy? It is here that I evoke the Groucho Marx line: “I refuse to join a club that would have me as a member,” as I am not anti-English and certainly would not have wanted to be sitting in a stuffy Dublin pub full of sweaty boozy Irish men roaring against “the old enemy” last Sunday.

From what I can gather, that 1966 team and their victory was a real celebration begrudged by few

But, since the 1966 world cup, the whole package that envelopes the English football bandwagon makes it easy to dislike everything about them.

From what I can gather, that 1966 team and their victory was a real celebration begrudged by few. But that warm glow has disappeared. It’s too simplistic to highlight the fans and the media as good reasons to be turned off, but they are the touchpaper reasons so many of us are ingrained with a profound disregard for the English national football team. The huge irony is that the actual players themselves are fantastic role models.

The squad which reached the final last Sunday, in particular, seems to be a smashing bunch of grounded young men

And there are very few players who have pulled on the English jersey over the past 40-odd years that I have been engrossed in football, who I wouldn’t have regarded as good eggs.

The squad which reached the final last Sunday, in particular, seems to be a smashing bunch of grounded young men, led by a really genuine manager in Gareth Southgate. Even so, I clapped when Italy equalised. I didn’t have to fake it. It came naturally to me.

And I prayed that they would go on to win it – which they did, but not the way I would have wanted.

It sums up everything that is dysfunctional about the English football franchise

The racial abuse of Saka, Rashford and Sancho for not scoring in the penalty shoot out from their own so-called “fans” deflated what should have been the sort of ecstasy that comes with backing a winning team in sport. It sums up everything that is dysfunctional about the English football franchise, but more sickeningly, elements of modern society in general – not only in England, but here, too.

On balance, I’m delighted England did not win last Sunday and they can sing “football is coming home” all they want. But my confliction lies in the fact that, in some twisted way, the manner in which they lost the game has given racists and backwoodsmen another pedestal on which to display their ignorance.

So much so that now I wish 19-year-old Bukayo Saka had scored that penalty to shut them up. England winning wouldn’t matter to me as much as much as defeating the slobs and racists.

Bon voyage

I’m off to Tokyo to work for RTÉ at the Olympic Games. It is certainly going to be different and I look forward to keeping you informed of it all here over the coming weeks.