It's a sad reflection on our society but Euro 2000, like most big tournaments these days, is an immensely more pleasurable experience now that England's three lions are back in their cage.
This refers to activities both on and off the pitch. The football, without England, is spectacular and the fans are enjoying themselves in peace. All is as it should be.
Italy's 2-0 win over Romania was never anything more than workmanlike but the fans in the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels produced a carnival atmosphere that simply wouldn't have existed had England's tasteless hordes been here evoking bitter memories of the Heysel Stadium disaster in Brussels in 1985.
Italy's football has not been the most spectacular in the tournament but their progress has been solid and impressive and they are now just one good performance away - against Holland in Amsterdam - from a place in the Final in Rotterdam.
They have one of the best disciplined defences in a tournament short of good defenders. In such circumstances the great attacking players here have had a field day and, subsequently, the goals have poured in at a rate greater than I can remember at a major tournament.
Among the best attacking players have been the Portugal pair of Rui Costa and Luis Figo and Hollland's Edgar Davids and Patrick Kluivert, who gave the tournament's most clinical display of finishing in yesterday's 6-1 win over Yugoslavia.
But I probably saw the last of one of my all-time favourites here when England's conquerors, Romania, bowed out to Italy on Saturday.
Gheorghe Hagi, who could peel a grape with his left foot, seems to have played every game in his illustrious career on the assumption that, for the entire 90 minutes, the whole world was conspiring against him.
Sent off playing for Galatasaray against Arsenal in the UEFA Cup Final, he was rightly dismissed for blatant cheating against the Italians when he pretended that Gianluca Zambrotta had tripped him in the penalty area.
He left the field like a scolded child complaining to everyone within earshot that he had been hard done by once again.
It was an unedifying way to end a magnificent career. Sadly, there are others of similar status we will not see again on the international stage, among them Dennis Bergkamp, Lothar Matthaus and our own Alan Shearer.
The question of cheating and punishment, though, is something that the football authorities need to address before the 2002 World Cup.
There should be a system of retrospective punishment for players like Fernando Couto, the Portuguese centre-half, who reacted as though he'd been poleaxed by Mike Tyson when Alpay Ozalan pushed him in the chest during Turkey's 2-0 defeat.
Couto's reaction, in lifting his hands to his face in mock agony, probably convinced Dutch referee Dick Jol that Alpay deserved to be sent off.
Maybe he did, but Couto, too, deserves to be censured for cheating. It was an incident similar to the dismissal of France's Laurent Blanc, who missed the 1998 World Cup Final because of Slaven Bilic's overreaction to his push.
The French now set the standard in Europe thanks to their carefully planned and controlled programme of coaching and team selection.
They have demonstrated that commitment and team spirit, traditional qualities of the English game, are no longer sufficient at this level.
England have been victims of their own technical and tactical inadequacies while the French, following their 2-1 win over Spain, now meet Portugal in the other semi-final in Brussels.
So, as Sky prepare to kick start a new season in the usual blaze of hype, we should perhaps pause and recognise that, in football terms, we are in danger of becoming little more than an offshore tax haven for the rich and famous from the Continent.
The lessons of the last couple of weeks have been hard and painful and what this tournament has shown is that unless they are addressed rigorously the gap between us and the best of the rest will continue to grow.
