Eurozone 2020: Thomas Delaney a colour blind role model

Thomas Delaney colour blind and on verge of final

Marca had a good yarn about a discussion on a Danish radio station just before the 2018 World Cup when a football fan rang in to say that because he was colour blind he struggled to tell Denmark and Mexico apart when they met in a friendly just before the tournament.

That call was followed by another from a fella who said he was also colour blind and had similar problems distinguishing the Danish from the Mexican shirts because his particular issue was telling red and green apart.

“My name is Thomas, I’m colour blind and this happens to me too,” he said when he introduced himself. “The other day on the pitch it was hard to see who was on my team and who was on the other team. It’s hard to describe. It’s like seeing two shades of the same colour. I have to look at faces, but quickly so I didn’t lose the ball.

“Who do you play for,” asked the host.

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“Denmark,” Thomas replied.

Thomas Delaney, that is. And considering he actually played in the Denmark v Mexico game, he knew what he was talking about.

Quote of the day

"Ed comes in, the boys are singing and everyone is buzzing. It just brings you all together. We play Germany, we play fantastic. We play Ukraine and the lads do unbelievable again." - Kieran Trippier crediting a sing-a-long with Ed Sheeran at England's base for their progress in the tournament.

Number of the day

5 - That's the paltry number of English fans surveyed by a betting company who predicted that Jack Grealish would be knighted after Euro 2020, compared to the 28 per cent who reckon it'll be a case of 'arise Sir Harry Kane'. Poor Jack.

Blankest Expression of the Week

We’ll go with the one Sam Allardyce sported when he appeared on ITV’s Good Morning Britain and listened to Richard Madeley emote about England in a manner that only Richard Madeley could.

“What I thought was wonderful and really unprecedented in this tournament was the way that the English forwards really went up to their defenders and basically said, ‘I’m coming through you, I’m sorry, there may be two or three of you, but I’m going to win through and cross’. And they did, they delivered, it was a real finding of confidence, wasn’t it? And a finding of real beautifully talented form.”

Sam: [EH?]

Great Kane

Understandably enough, the English press have been looking for positive omens ahead of that tussle with Denmark, The Sun striking gold on that front when dog breeder Laurence Morgan-Evans got in touch to say his pooch is rooting for England. Not any old pooch, though - as the headline put it:

“GREAT KANE: Euro 2020 star Harry Kane backed to lead England into first major final since 1966 - by a Great Dane!”

Mighty Major, we were told, is kind of the Peter Crouch of the dog world, “standing nearly 7ft on his back legs”, and when the paper’s photographers arrived to take snaps of him, “he even wore an England shirt and stood proudly draped in the flag of St George to show his support for Gareth Southgate’s men”.

Whether Mighty Major had voluntarily put on that England shirt, they didn’t say.

Polly backs England

Daily Mirror, Tuesday: “Psychic parrot who guessed three Euro 2020 results chooses England for semi-finals.”

Daily Mirror, Tuesday: “Mystic meerkats predict England win over Denmark in Euro 2020 semi-final.”

You can feel it, it’s coming home.