A Day Filled With Noise, and a Silence They’ll Never Forget

A Euro 2020 delayed by the pandemic and then extended to a shootout ends, finally, with an Italian celebration on the field and stunned fans in the stands.

LONDON — All day, there had been noise. The songs had started early in the morning, as the first few hundred fans appeared on Wembley Way, flags fluttering from their backs. They had echoed through the afternoon, as first tens and then a hundred thousand more had joined them, as shattered glass crunched underfoot. The songs started as soon as the train doors opened at the Wembley Park underground station, the paeans to Gareth Southgate and Harry Maguire, the renditions of “Three Lions” and “Sweet Caroline,” and they grew louder as the stadium appeared on the horizon, until it seemed as if they were emanating from the building itself. Inside, the noise rang around, gathering force as it echoed back and forth when it seemed as England was experiencing some sort of exceptionally lucid reverie: when Luke Shaw scored and the hosts led the European Championship final inside two minutes and everything was, after more than half a century, coming home.