The night before yesterday was dominated, of course, by the Euro quarter-finals match between England and Sweden. This turned out to be one of the most memorable matches ever watched. The England team sloppily conceded a goal to the Swedes after a poor clearance in defence and from this point on, the Swedes really dominated the match scoring another goal half way through the first half and could easily have added a couple more. Indeed, a score of 4:0 to the Swedes rather than 2:0 would not have been an unfair result at half-time. The Swedes were quicker to the ball, completely closed England down and completely outplayed them throughout the whole of the half although England did have one shot on goal that was tipped onto the crossbar. In the second half, England played much better looking as though they really intended to make a match of it but the teams were practically equally matched for two thirds of the half. Then the England manager made a couple of inspired substitutions and England scored two goals in less than two minutes, one of the substitutes contributing the second. From this point on, there was a tense finish to the match as the scores were level at 2:2 and so it remained for the remainder of the match and for the thirty minutes of extra time that was played. So now we come to the dreaded penalty shootout in which of the 14 penalties taken, 9 were missed and only 5 resulted in a goal. So, England scored from three penalties and missed at least three but the Swedes did even worse and only scored from two of their penalties meaning that England won the penalty shootout by 3:2. This has been judged the worst penalty shootout of all time by commentators to the game and in some respects, the England team can regard themselves as extremely lucky. I think it is fair to say that the best team on the day did not win the match but England live to fight another day in a semi-final against Italy next Tuesday. The English women really threw themselves into the later stages of the match and picked up a fair share of injuries some minor but a major one to the team captain which may keep her out of the next match. So, as I say this was one of the most extraordinary football matches it was possible to witness and the Swedes, having dominated so much of the match and creating the better chances, must feel devastated. But that, as they say is football and as Napoleon is said to have remarked ‘Give me generals that are lucky!’ Incidentally, there is no proof that Napoleon ever did say this but the saying is often attributed to him.
The day started off fairly bright and sunny but I have no major things scheduled for the day except that my son and I might put our collective minds towards the installation of a new router which EE, our broadband provider, thinks is necessary for us in an updated contract. My son called round and after we had breakfasted together, we set about getting the new EE router installed. This had all of the appearance in being identical with the existing one but it is possible that it has an enhanced chipset within it. The technology seemed to install without fuss and then we set to work making sure that the various devices recognise the new router. We had to supply new credentials to my main desktop and the two portables that I have and this seemed unproblematic. We turned our attention to the two TV sets one in the Main Lounge and one in the Music Lounge but as these are on a kind of network that runs throughout the house via the electric cabling, they needed no updating and still work as formerly. Then I boxed up the old router ready for despatch back to EE whilst my son was simultaneously packing up his NHS supplied IT equipment ready for it to be collected on Monday. I went into town to get the router despatched via the Post Office who just scanned a ‘returns’ QR on my phone but I am being particularly careful with the Post Office receipt I was given in case they deny ever having had it returned. Then having thought I had got everything sorted out, the two Amazon Echo devices I have installed one in the kitchen and one in the bedroom did not work as they still thought they were connected to the former router. The only way to reconnect is through the Alexa app but I had an idea this never seemed to work on my current iPhone but worked perfectly on the previous iPhone that I have retained as a backup. This needed some charge so I left it for a couple of hours and then tried the Alexa app on the kitchen smart speaker. Having got its new password credentials this sprang into life much to my relief as I play it in the kitchen several times a day. Then I turned my attention via the app to the bedroom smart speaker and this recognised the new credentials without my having to re-enter them (so presumably smart speakers communicate with each other via Amazon) Anyway, another tech problem was solved for the day. The football match this evening is going to be Spain vs. Switzerland. Which is a ‘must see’ match. On the one hand Spain is one of the tournaments favourites and may well in the fullness of time prove to be the ultimate champions but Switzerland is playing on their home soil and the stadium is bound to be filled to capacity with fervent supporters. So, as in last night’s football, unpredictable things can and do happen although I shall be rooting for Spain to win.
As the weather systems change after the spell of hot weather, some violent thunder storms are predicted in the next day or so, particularly for the South of England. These may or may not sweep up the country tomorrow but a violent thunder storm with a cloud burst of its accompanying rain would surely be welcome to most of us at the moment. The weather is quite humid at the moment but I may squeeze in a little bit of gardening.