After much waiting Euro 2020 opener shows football’s restorative powers

Delayed gratification is supposed to be good for the soul but, particularly in a pandemic, it is easy to become tired of waiting.

Yet if no one can yet be quite sure whether staging Euro 2020 in 2021, one year and one day after its original, scheduled start date, will prove quite as restorative as Uefa hopes, this curtain-raiser inside Rome’s Stadio Olimpico served as a welcome reminder of football’s transformative powers.

After so many months of so much human loss, Italy and Turkey emphasised that even a highly unconventional tournament spread across 11 countries and operating in accordance with sometimes stiflingly strict Covid protocols has retained its traditional power to enchant.

Related: Italy make flying start to Euro 2020 with dominant opening win over Turkey

Football is full of false dawns – Middlesbrough fans may remember Lee Cattermole was prematurely dubbed “the new Steven Gerrard” after a fabulous one-off Uefa Cup performance against Roma in the Stadio Olimpico – but Roberto Mancini’s Azzurri surely demonstrated why they rank among the tournament favourites.

With Jorginho controlling midfield and Ciro Immobile’s intelligent movement contradicting his surname, an impressively hig-pressing Italy were as relentlessly efficient as their suave manager is expensively elegant.

Turkey defended well during the first half and, despite subsequently being made to look extremely ordinary, are arguably not yet done but, ultimately, Merih Demiral’s own goal, Immobile’s first in a major tournament and another from Lorenzo Insigne emphasised why Mancini’s team arrived on a 27 match unbeaten run.

Given it was game one of 51, kick-off was preceded by a suitably extravagant opening ceremony. There is often a sense of “once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all” about these preambles and, sure enough, the initial display of giant coloured balls, unfurling national flags, fireworks, coloured smoke and harnessed drummers dangling on ropes suspended from the stadium roof, seemed both utterly spectacular and pretty par for the course.

The tone was raised significantly once the slick choreography and Euro synth rock soundtrack was replaced by the sight of the tenor Andrea Bocelli standing on the pitch in a royal blue jacket giving a spine-tingling rendition of Nessun Dorma. Evocative felt an understatement. For five minutes the world felt wonderful again.

All this ceremonial stuff concluded with aerial drone shots tricking television viewers into believing a kaleidoscopic display of coloured flares and twinkling lights had transformed the ground into a giant birthday cake studded with candles.

It hardly mattered whether or not the players would match such artistry (although Domenico Berardi and co most definitely did as they passed and moved at pace). For the 16,000 fans who had traversed the tree-lined boulevard leading to a stadium sandwiched between the Tiber and the Monte Mario hill it really must have felt a bit like several birthday parties rolled into one. The largely joyous noise they generated belied the fact the stadium was only a quarter full.

After so long spent performing behind closed doors, the tempo – at least from Italy – remained surprisingly intense and energetic for an opening game on such a humid evening. The players looked high on adrenaline with Mancini’s charges increasingly finding their one- and two-touch passing range and ruthlessly penning Senol Gunes’s side into their own half.

Insigne played a lovely one-two with the ever dangerous Berardi but couldn’t quite wrap his foot around the ball and bend it into the top corner while only Ugurcan Cakir’s fingertips kept Giorgio Chiellini’s header out.

Further half-chances – plus a penalty appeal after the ball struck Zeki Celik’s arm – came and went but, initially at least, Turkey maintained their defensive cool, making it tough for Mancini’s men by pulling everyone behind the ball and, albeit briefly, transforming their compact out-of-possession shape into the sort of formidable red (shirted) wall even Boris Johnson probably dares not dream of commanding.

It soon crumbled though, leaving Gunes’s pre-match desire for a rematch with Mancini’s side “in the final” appearing somewhat ambitious and Italy’s failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia almost unfathomable.

Along with an entire continent’s football fans, Immobile and friends now appear determined to make up for lost time.

Maybe, just maybe, good things really do come to those who wait.