Incoming: Euros Blog!
It's tournament time, and that can only mean one thing. However, this time, one thing is brought to you by two people...
Some of you might remember that, way back in September 2021, the Paralympics were going on and we here at Bench Units took it upon ourselves to bring you day-by-day wheelchair basketball updates. They ranged between excruciatingly detailed and total blags based solely on the questionable statsheet of a 3:45am tip-off between two teams that we could all agree nobody was that invested in. Both were equally likely to be inaccurate or not convey the point at all, but we had fun.
Anyone who has listened to our freshest episode will be aware that the 2021 European Championships tip off tomorrow (with Italy and Austria at 11:45m - speaking of games that are hard to get up for).
Here at Bench Units, there is nothing we love more than watching a tournament evolve and ferment, mercilessly watching any footage we can find to scour it for clues about teams we feel like we already understand pretty well. That is to say, we’ll be back bringing you the round-up of every single day of the 2021 Euros. But with a slight twist…
While Tokyo was going ahead, my co-host was busy doing actual basketball things and mostly just left me to spill my own thoughts onto this Substack. It was tough, but I persevered without him. He was obviously jealous of how much fun I was having because he’s joining the party this time around. He’s also going to be actually in Madrid for some of it, so I look forward to hearing about how players go out of their way to decline any interviews with him.
That’s right! Myself (Mark) and James will both be bringing the heat in these daily round-up and predictions columns. It’ll be like the podcast episodes but where we can’t cut each other off as effectively.
On top of all of this, I’m very excited to be talking about games that will be both re-playable and played in a timezone that’s accessible to us.
Everything you need for the full experience is right here:
If you aren’t excited, I don’t know what to tell you other than that it’s probably because you have more going on than either of us.
Up Tomorrow…
Sticking with the old Bench Units gimmick that we’ve used since 2018, We’re going to list out tomorrow’s schedule and our predictions for the results, based on almost nothing at all.
All game times are in Central European Time:
11:45am - Italy vs Austria
Mark: Italy by 22
James: Italy by 14
2:00pm - Turkey vs Netherlands
Mark: Netherlands by 8
James: Netherlands by 7
2:30pm - Poland vs Switzerland
Mark: Poland by 16
James: Poland by 12
4:15pm - Great Britain vs Israel
Mark: GB by 26
James: GB by 30
4:45pm - Germany vs Lithuania
Mark: Germany by 47
James: Germany by 29
8:00pm - Spain vs France
Mark: France by 9
James: Spain by 11
Now get ready to saddle up and binge-watch.