It was a strange, humid night at the Stade de France, the site of the Euro 2016 final. First there were the moths, thousands upon thousands of them, apparently attracted by the sodium lamps that had been used on the pitch overnight. They had settled in the grass and then were disturbed when the players came out to warm up, rising in great swarms into the evening sky, leaving a sooty residue across the seats, landing on players and officials, and drawing, in turn, clouds of birds in expectation of a feast.
After a warm-up that felt like a magical realist version of the plagues of Egypt, the game itself was drab.