Before England Could Celebrate, It Had to Suffer

A 55-year wait for a place in a major final was always going to be agonizing. The final step did not disappoint.

LONDON — Even victory, even vindication is not free from suffering. For more than half a century, England has known nothing but pain, disappointment and regret. It might have imagined that breaking that brutal, biennial cycle of dashed hopes and bittersweet dreams once and for all would feel light, and joyous, and pure. It was not. England’s fans had been gathering on Wembley Way — the pedestrian street that runs from the Wembley Park tube station at one end to the stadium, its curving, glinting arch slicing through the sky, at the other — since the early afternoon, drinking and singing and waiting, impatiently, for the moment they have been willing into existence for a lifetime to arrive. They came bearing flags, crosses of St. George decked out with the names of their club teams and their hometowns, and they came wearing their years of hurt on their backs. Quite how many vintage jerseys have been speckled through the crowd at Wembley, these past three weeks, has been striking.