Premium: 80% of Success is Showing Up
Whether you’re USWNT coach Vlatko Andonovski or a journalist like me, expending the effort to be at a marquee event like Euro 2022 makes a difference
SHEFFIELD, England — Show up. Always, always show up.
It’s one of the basic messages I share when aspiring journalists ask if I have any career advice. (Another one: Ask questions you don’t know the answer to.) And you’re never sure exactly when you might be in a position to choose: Follow your own advice or violate it?
On Monday, a day after arriving in London to cover the final week of Euro 2022, I got an email from UEFA responding to my request for a media seat at the England-Sweden semifinal here in Sheffield on Tuesday. Understand, you can have an accreditation to cover the tournament (as I do), but you still have to apply separately for a media seat in the stadium. This was the response from UEFA:
The last sentence was there for a reason. Translation: Don’t even think of coming, because we’re not changing our minds.
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