EURO countdown (4 days to go) – Pig farmers, criminals and European Brazilians

European Championships have been held every four years since 1960, but the 16th edition of the tournament will take place five years after the last one. And the reason? Covid-19 pandemic, of course. The virus has taken hold of our lives and most things in them and it’s also affected the Euro.

Today, we’d like to take you through a gallery of the strange and unusual facts and people surrounding Euro 2020… which takes place in 2021. Makes sense, right? It’s only the beginning…

Host country? Make that host continent!

Of all 15 tournaments that have taken place thus far, 12 of them were hosted by a single country. It was a bit silly when Belgium and The Netherlands joined forces to co-host the tournament in 2000. And the sense of novelty largely disappeared by the time Austria and Switzerland hosted the Euro 2008 together. Four years later, Euro 2012 was played in both Poland and Ukraine. And nobody bat an eyelid. But in 2021, the term co-hosting has taken a whole new meaning. Due to travel difficulties, still-ongoing pandemic and financial budgets everywhere, the decision was made to break the tournament apart and have the games around the continent. There are ELEVEN host countries. Yep.

Big decisions with the help of VAR

This year’s tournament will be the first European Championship with the use of Video Assistant Referees. If you shove an opponent when you think nobody is looking or your nose hair is offside – you will be found out by the world’s bleeding-edge technology. Get your cold drinks and snacks ready because we’ll be waiting for quite a few VAR checks to be done over the coming month or so.

Shocking: the stands won’t be empty

Out of 12 stadiums that will host the matches, only one will be full – Puskas Arena in Budapest, Hungary. All other grounds will allow only a limited percentage of their capacity to be used. St. Petersburg has confirmed a capacity of 50 per cent. Baku has confirmed a capacity of 50 per cent, with the travelling fans of the participating teams required to present a negative Covid-19 test result to enter Azerbaijan. Most stands won’t be packed, but we’ll finally get to witness a bit of atmosphere at football matches.

Brazilian flair

There are quite a few Brazilians playing in this tournament. Pepe plays for Portugal and Ukraine is represented by Marlos, the man who gained citizenship after years of playing in the country. He says that he feels as if he was born in Ukraine. Italy will have three Brazil-born players in their squad: Rafael Toloi, Emerson Palmieri and Jorginho. The Russian national team has its own Brazilian talisman, the flying 30-year-old full-back Mario Fernandes. He admits that he still doesn’t speak Russian despite living in Moscow for nine years. Then there is Thiago Alcantara. He was born in Italy while his mother was playing professional volleyball there. His father Mazinho was a Brazil international, but Thiago gained Spanish citizenship as a boy and decided to play for La Furia Roja.

Colourful characters

The players are, of course, the ones who make all the difference. Stars, match-winners, heroes and villains – they are the ones who will make headlines as they fight to bring glory to their national teams. However, it’s not all about running, shooting, heading and tackling. The players are human beings as well. And we all know they come in various shapes, sizes and characters.

Declan Gallagher (©AFP)

SCOTLAND - Declan Gallagher spent a year in prison for attacking a man and breaking his skull at a wedding party. With a baseball bat. Ironically, Gallagher is a defender.

Arsene Wenger and Wojciech Szczesny (©AFP)

POLAND - Wojciech Szczesny is going to be his country’s first-choice goalkeeper, but six years ago, while he was still at Arsenal, he was caught smoking a cigarette in the showers after a defeat in Southampton. Arsene Wenger fined him, of course.

Croatians Domagoj Vida and Marcelo Brozovic (©AFP)

CROATIA – Veteran defender Domagoj Vida owns a farm where he breeds black pigs. He’s made a successful business out of supplying restaurants with fresh meat. Vida's team mate Marcelo Brozović would have become a butcher just like his dad had his football career gone awry. He would have continued the family trade and maybe spend days slicing Vida's pigs. Midfielder Mateo Kovacic met his future wife in church when he was an altar boy and she was in the choir. Winger Josip Brekalo sparked controversy in Germany when he stated he wouldn’t like to carry a captain’s armband with LGBT colours, saying he was raised religiously and that would contradict his Christian belief. Milan Badelj comes from a family of florists and his wife is a classical pianist. Winger Ivan Perisic is a keen beach volleyball player.

Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci (©AFP)

ITALY – Veteran defender Giorgio Chiellini has a master’s degree in business administration. Thirteen years ago, while struggling for a place at second-tier Treviso, Leonardo Bonucci wrote on a peace of paper: “I want to play in the national team.” He put the paper in his wallet as a reminder. And here we are. Midfielder Matteo Pessina once made the papers for showing up at the Atalanta training camp with a bag carrying the name of a porn site. Lorenzo Insigne worked on a market stall to help his family when he was a teenager.

Kevin Mbabu (©AFP)

SWITZERLAND – Defender Kevin Mbabu amazed Wolfsburg fans earlier this as he played for six weeks with a broken arm. Full-back Ricardo Rodrigues nearly died shorty after being born. In his first year of life, he went through seven bouts of pneumonia. Midfielder Christian Fassnacht became a professional footballer by accident. When he was a 20-year-old amateur, he was filmed doing ball tricks for a TV show and that got him noticed. Seven years later, he's representing his country in a major tournament. Ruben Vargas and Renato Steffen both learned to be painters and decorators, working from 07.00 on construction sites.

Burak Yilmaz (©AFP)

TURKEY – Defender Yusuf Yazici used to spend his summers working as a shepherd for his grandmother. Midfielder Ozan Tufan is notorious for causing havoc on social media by commenting on models’ photos and sending them amorous messages. The player who starred this season by winning the title with LOSC Lille, veteran striker Burak Yilmaz is the only player in the national team who has played for Turkish football's big four - Besiktas, Fenerbahce, Galatasaray and Trabzonspor.

Marcos Llorente (©AFP)

SPAIN - Defender Marcos Llorente sleeps on a $40,000 bed made using only organic materials which is supposed to boost your immune system and reduce biological age by an average of 15 years. If the bed works, then Llorente is 11 years old. The son of a taxi driver from the working-class neighbourhood, the first thing midfielder Koke did when he began to earn money was to buy a villa from his parents on the outskirts of Madrid. He watches nature documentaries to relax.

Joe Allen (©AFP)

WALES - Midfielder Joe Allen hit the headlines five years ago for appearing on the cover of Chicken & Egg magazine. He revealed that he looks after two cockerels and 12 hens at home, and has names for them all. Jonny Williams picked up an A grade in GCSE maths but fancied being a chef if he never made it as a footballer. Big striker Kieffer Moore was juggling playing part-time for lower-league Truro with working as a lifeguard and personal trainer when he was 20. Now, at 28 years of age, he's going to Euro 2020.

SWEDEN – Winger Dejan Kulusevski reads the Bible before every match – and he loves to listen to the legendary rapper 2Pac. His teammate Alexander Isak, son of Somali parents, had an offer from Real Madrid on the table in 2017 – but he refused it so he could join Borussia Dortmund.

BELGIUM - Defender Thomas Meunier likes to unwind by visiting art galleries and counts Salvador Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory as his favourite painting. Midfielder Dennis Praet enjoys gardening.

Martin Hinteregger (©AFP)

AUSTRIA - Eccentric defender Martin Hinteregger is a qualified helicopter pilot. He plans to work as a rescue pilot or for the police or doing sightseeing flights when his playing days are over. In the meantime, he loves to wear weird clothes and smuggle beers for his teammates to entice socialising. Aleksandar Dragovic causes a stir during his team’s title celebrations one time because he kept slapping a bald man on the head. He hadn’t realized that the man was a big-shot politician. And Andreas Ulmer once declined an international call-up because he was planning to get married on match day. His fellow defender Christopher Trimmel runs a tattoo parlour in his spare time. Valentino Lazaro writes and records music in his home studio, focusing on love songs in English.

Steve Mandanda (©AFP)

FRANCE - Captain Hugo Lloris was once considered a huge tennis talent. As you may already know, he’d chosen football instead. Veteran goalkeeper Steve Mandanda was nicknamed “Frenchie” by his brothers for choosing to play for France over the Democratic Republic of the Congo, his country of birth. Defender Lucas Digne is an avid film buff and a huge Tom Hanks fan. Right-back Leo Dubois has opened an ice cream shop in Lyon. Kurt Zouma was named after Jean-Claude Van Damme’s character in the movie Kickboxer. And his middle name is Happy.

Arijan Ademi (©AFP)

NORTH MACEDONIA - In 2011, at the age of 17, defender Darko Velkovski was all set for a big transfer to Inter, but due to administrative obstacles, his move to the Serie A giants fell through. Six years ago, Croatian-born midfielder Arijan Ademi tested positive for the steroid stanozolol and was handed a four-year suspension from football. He appealed and the court of arbitration for sport eventually reduced his sentence to two years. He made a successful comeback and is a key player for Dinamo Zagreb and his national team.

GERMANY - Backup goalkeeper Kevin Trapp speaks five languages and has learned to play the piano during the Covid lockdown last year. Jonah Hoffman loves astronomy and often spends time looking at the stars through a telescope. Toni Kroos and his brother Felix make their own podcast in which they discuss various subjects. Toni does some serious work outside football as well, as he runs a foundation to help seriously ill children. Thomas Muller and his wife Lisa own a horse breeding centre. The guy says that he really likes horses.

HUNGARY - Goalkeeper Adam Bogdan has his own craft brewery and enjoys making various kinds of beer. Meanwhile, defender Endre Botka calls his wife Mourinho because she knows everything about football. Gergo Lovrencsics, meanwhile, likes to go fishing whenever he isn’t playing or training. He says sitting by a lake with a fishing rod in silence is his idea of a good time. Adam Nagy loves to solve sudoku puzzles to unwind.

Quincy Promes (©AFP)

THE NETHERLANDS - Striker Quincy Promes had to spend two days in custody at the end of last year after being accused of stabbing one of his cousins in the knee during an argument at a party. He claimed that he's done nothing wrong. Young attacker Wout Weghorst likes to unwind by lighting a candle in a church, renovating old homes and taking strolls with lonely elderly people, which he was doing long before the pandemic struck.

Denis Makarov (©AFP)

RUSSIA – Long-serving defender Yuri Zhirkov is still going strong at 37. He’s got interests outside football – with history being a fascinating subject to him. He’s a keen collector of items from World War II and is even planning on opening a museum so the public could see various pieces of weapons, medals and uniforms, as well as personal belongings of many historical figures. Midfielder Daler Kuzyayev has studied for a postgraduate diploma at St.Petersburg’s University of Economics. Young winger Denis Makarov started by playing for a team called Yakutia Yakutsk in Siberia. Temperatures there dropped as low as -55 degrees. And he didn't even get any wages for his troubles - his parents had to send him money so he could afford food and shelter.

Raphael Guerreiro (©AFP)

PORTUGAL – Defender Raphael Guerreiro was born in France to a French mother and a Portuguese father. He didn’t speak a word of his father’s nation when he was first called up to represent it in 2014. He has learned the language since, but is still uncomfortable speaking it in public. Brazilian-born Pepe arrived to the country with no money and a place to sleep – now he’s proud to call himself Portuguese. Nelson Semedo has a large collection of figurines of characters from the Manga cartoon Dragon Ball. Joao Palhinha is often ridiculed by his Sporting teammates for being careful with money and say that’s why he almost always has lunch at the club’s academy. It is even said he often takes food home in boxes.

Are you excited yet?

Stay with MOZZART SPORT KENYA for all the exciting news regarding the tournament, sides, players, favourites, underdogs, fixtures... The countdown has started! See you at the EURO 2020.