For some reason I always remember sitting on the sofa in the spare room at my parents' house, the house where I grew up, watching the England-Netherlands Euro '96 group match with my dad. I was back home for the summer between years teaching English in Galicia. There was a real sense of self-detonating optimism in that team, El Tel's infectious showman's grin, Gazza's childlike exuberance, that it was great to share. Downbeat cynics (realists) that we both were, we got caught up in it.

Nostalgia for simpler days, or at least a couple of hours, when it all made sense and felt good.

Of course the bloody Germans won in the end.