July 10th 2024.
Fans are eagerly anticipating tonight's match between England and the Netherlands in the semi-finals of Euro 2024. The winner of this game will move on to the final against Spain, which is sure to be an intense and thrilling match. As usual, the BBC and ITV will be broadcasting the entire tournament, with the BBC covering the first two games for England against Serbia and Denmark, and ITV taking over for the game against Slovenia and the Round of 16 comeback against Slovakia.
While the quarter-final win against Switzerland was shown on the BBC, many fans are worried about ITV broadcasting tonight's semi-final. There's a perception that the national team tends to perform better when the game is shown on the BBC, rather than on ITV with its numerous advertisements. But is there any truth to this curse on ITV's coverage? According to Metro's analysis, it seems that the statistics are not in England's favor for tonight's game.
In fact, since the 1998 World Cup, only 9 out of 32 England matches at major tournaments have resulted in a win when broadcasted on ITV. This gives the broadcaster a meager win percentage of just 28%, with 11 draws and 12 losses making up the rest. Some of the most heartbreaking and humiliating moments for England have been shown on ITV, including the devastating losses to France and Croatia in the last two World Cups, as well as the embarrassing defeat to Iceland in Euro 2016.
Going even further back, ITV has been responsible for showing England's World Cup penalty shootout losses to Portugal and Argentina, both of which occurred after a star player was sent off - Wayne Rooney in 2006 and David Beckham in 1998. On the other hand, the BBC has had a much better track record when it comes to England games, with 21 wins out of 30 matches since 1998. That's an impressive win percentage of 70%, with only 2 draws and 7 losses.
However, it's not all good news for the BBC either, as they have also shown some terrible results for England, including the infamous 4-1 loss to Germany in the 2010 World Cup. And both broadcasters shared the heartbreak of England's loss on penalties to Italy in the Euro 2020 final.
As for the potential final on Sunday, July 14th, both the BBC and ITV will be showing the game, where either England or the Netherlands will face Spain after their 2-1 victory over France in the semi-finals. It remains to be seen which broadcaster will have better luck for the national team, but one thing is for sure - fans will be hoping that ITV stays away from England's fixtures in the future.
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