Photo: PA
Twitter users have reacted in force to a video posted by the prime minister today, ahead of the Euro 2020 final.
Boris Johnson told the England team ahead of their match against Italy that “we are all hoping you can go one better and bring it home tonight”.
“Football’s coming home,” he added.
“So is the #JohnsonVariant,” replied one Twitter user.
Another said: “The England team represents everything that you do not: tolerance, diversity, equality, humanity, empathy, success. They do not represent you and you definitely do not represent them.
“Just fuck off with your plastic patriotism. You disgrace all of us.”
Marcus Johnson added ironically: “Keep politics out of football, they said.”
“It’s coming Rome mate,” Ben Schwartz told Johnson.
One person said they want England to win tonight because they admire the “skill, maturity, integrity and morals” of the team and their manager Gareth Southgate. “They represent true English values – unlike this bandwagon-jumping, excuse of a man. Butt out, Boris Johnson!”
Reece Dinsdale said: “Johnson hijacking the success of the England football team as if it’s somehow a Tory achievement… just like the vaccination roll out was. Yeah… ok.”
“I thought he didn’t do gestures?,” Sean Cavens asked, whilst Jake Collins said “no doubts that Boris will claim this as one of ‘his triumphs’ over the last 18 months.”
Martin Williams, deputy editor at Open Democracy, asked: “Wouldn’t it be nice if the same level of political support was given to the arts?”
Another Twitter user added: “There’s a bloke on the England bench that does your job better than you mate.”
Italian newspapers said today that the world is supporting their football team in tonight’s final against England.
Il Corriere dello Sport claimed “the whole world is supporting Italy” – whilst Il Messagero said “the whole of Europe” does.
And La Stampa argued the England team was trying to make up for the “humiliation” of Brexit.
They also mocked the prime minister for his ‘sudden love’ of football and passed judgements on the way him and his wife Carrie Symonds looked at England’s match against Denmark, according to The Independent.
It read: “Boris Johnson doesn’t love football, but he went to the semi-final against Denmark wearing an England t-shirt, shouting and fist-pumping so that everyone saw him… His wife Carrie looked like his carer trying to keep him quiet.”
One of Rome’s most popular British pubs, The Albert, has mostly been booked by Italians tonight, according to owner Sara Mandatori.
Mandatory is half Scottish, half Italian and will quietly support Italy tonight.
Related: ‘The whole world is supporting Italy’, Rome newspapers say
