Day 19: Campeones!

I told you so.

A decent final, not the best game of the tournament by any means but certainly enjoyable. Spain were dominant if not in the end clear victors and should really have wrapped it up far earlier, the problem being that despite some of the brilliant positions that the midfield runners were playing themselves into, none of them, particularly Andres Iniesta, had the striker’s instinct to run straighter into the path of the pass and really capitalise, which was obviously the great advantage created by the Torres-Villa partnership.

That was, however, the only problem with Spain tonight and it would be unfair to dwell. Germany, on the other hand, were awful and were lucky to get nil and dirty kit. Defensive ineptitude combined with attacking incertitude to terminal effect. Before the tournament I would have argued that Miroslav Klose was every bit as world class a player as Michael Ballack – now, definitely not. He was exposed as a flat-track bully here, while his much-hyped former partner “Super” Mario Gomez has seen his reputation flattened by a truly horrific competition.

I’m not sure the German side needs an awful lot of changes, though. Joachim Low certainly needs to revive confidence but the potential is certainly there – witness their excellent World Cup two years ago. Podolski needs to return to a more central position, that’s for sure, as he’s been the only German striker to even look like scoring, and Bastian Schweinsteiger showed flashes of brilliance, and together with Ballack they should be the fulcrum of the team.

Spain are worthy champions. The best team has won and now that the duck is broken it’s quite plausible that they could push on to be the dominant force in world football – but let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet. Luis Aragones, objectionable racist prat that he may be, has certainly proved me wrong in terms of his enduring ability, and will be missed as he leaves at the end of his contract, possibly to Fenerbahce – now that will be interesting.

This isn’t quite the end of my Euro 2008 coverage, as I’ll be doing an awards post or two in the next few days, before broadening my horizons a bit into the wider sporting world. It’s been fun.

Days 17-18: The semi-finals, and Final Preview

So, approximately an hour to go until the final kicks off, and having not seen either of the semis in full, I figured it was worth waiting until now to look back at the results and take a look ahead to the appetising game that will close the tournament.

I saw the last ten minutes of Germany’s win over Turkey, and it looks like I got a pretty good deal. Sure, there were three goals before then, two for Germany, but as I understand Germany were underwhelming at best while Turkey were a little out of their depths despite their opposition. The two goals that I did see, one apiece for Semih Senturk and Phillipp Lahm, were impressive ones, however – Semih’s an excellent poacher’s finish capitalising on some enterprising wing play (and, it has to be said, disappointing full-back play), and Lahm’s last-gasp effort an expertly crafted team goal, regardless of any literal slip-ups at the back (mentioning no names, Colin Kazim-Richards…). Exciting as it would have been to see Turkey topple Germany, I certainly feel we’re in for a better final as a result, as this Turkey side lacks both the quality and the squad depth (not all their own fault) to put up a good fight against Spain, who must surely now be considered favourites.

Yes, I know they’re playing the nation of inevitable tournament wins, but after Luis Aragones’ side powerfully took the wind out of Russia’s sails in the second semi, it’s hard to identify a department in which Spain are not better than the Germans. As well as David Villa had played so far for his four goals, his injury led to an even more fluid and dangerous line-up thanks to the introduction of Fabregas, who put Russia to the sword with an exemplary performance, far outshining Andrei Arshavin whose three contrasting games here haven’t really given conclusive proof either way of whether he’s the real deal. A move to Barcelona awaits, but I can’t see him getting into that starting XI, no matter how poor they were last year.

So we’re left with the two teams who, while not being the best two in the tournament (that would be Spain and Holland), have certainly been the best teams in their halves of the draw, meaning we really do have the perfect final, and it’s not often you can say that. I’m optimistic of an exciting game in which Germany must take the initiative if they want to stifle Spain’s superior quality, but if the Spainsh, and particularly Fabregas and David Silva, are allowed to play the way they want to they will win. My money’s on Spain, as it has been from the start, and just once, I’d love to be right. Here’s hoping.

Day 8: Spain qualify and Greece go home. Ah, justice.

So after two games in each group, we already know all four group winners. While it’s impossible to deny that Portugal, Croatia, Holland and Spain deserve to have gotten through, I can’t help feeling that the new preference for head-to-head results over goal difference makes the groups less exciting than they could be. As a result of this, today’s potentially interesting Switzerland-Portugal game has been made completely irrelevant, and it could have been more had results changed just slightly over the draw as a whole.

But let’s not dwell. Spain secured their first place in the group by beating Sweden 2-1 thanks to a late, late goal from David Villa. Sweden will be disappointed but over the course of the game Spain were definitely the better side, having created much more than the Swedes and being refused what looked like a clear penalty for a foul on Silva just before half-time. Silva in particular was impressive, stepping up while Xavi and Iniesta failed to extend quite as much influence as they had over Russia, and the two strikers continued to work hard but without the top-quality service they’d gotten before. I was glad to see Fernando Torres score as I’d felt he’d deserved a goal against Guus Hiddink’s team, and while it wasn’t particularly pretty, his finish from a free-kick was clever under pressure. Iker Casillas didn’t have much to do in the Spanish goal but should have stopped Ibrahimovic’s goal – he got a hand on it but definitely had time and room to make more confident contact. Villa spared his blushes somewhat.

I’d been worried that Greece v Russia later that evening would be another terminal bore after the Greek showing four days previous, but to their credit they tried to attack…a bit more. Remaining for the most part tedious, unimaginative, and plain ineffective (witness Angelos Charisteas’ woeful attempt to head the ball in from Basinas’ wonderful free-kick), they should have been roundly thrashed by a superior Russia side, who were strong in defence and industrious in midfield, but nearly suffered by way of having all the finishing of this sen

So with Spain winners, Sweden and Russia will play in four days’ time for the right to meet Holland in the quarters. That could be a real cracker, and I’ve got a feeling now after the disappointing Sweden showing so far that, with Arshavin back, Russia could sneak that one. Today, Group A draws to a close, but with the simultaneous kick-offs I won’t be able to cover both games completely. I’ll be focusing on Czech Republic v Turkey, as it’s the only meaningful game being played, but will have to try to balance a bit more later in the week.

David Pleat Watch

To his credit, ol’ Pleaty had one of his better days watching Spain and Sweden, though he was denied a perfect outing by suddenly turning the Spanish right-back into a Russian, Sergei Ramos. His companion in the box, Jon Champion, was a worse offender by virtue of being a smart-arse. Trying to be clever with his Spanish pronunciations, he got David Villa right by interpreting the double L as a Y sound, but then got a bit too cocky and started referring to the left-back as ‘Capdeviya’. Unfortunately, the one-L’ed Capdevila is pronounced as it reads. Nice try, though.

Day 4: Spain set the standard and Greece get what they deserve

As impressive as Holland’s performance against Italy was, it was mostly their superb defending and opportunistic counterattacking two or three times a half that made them the team to beat in this competition. They’ve now been overtaken by Spain, whose 4-1 win over Russia yesterday afternoon came from entire halves of scintillating attacking play that for sheer quality outshone the Dutch resourcefulness. Yes, Russia were poor, but they were made to look worse than they were by the partnership of David Villa and Fernando Torres, which lived up to all our lofty expectations. It does make you wonder why Torres was withdrawn ten minutes into the second half, though. (I told you Aragones was mad.)

We’ll probably have to wait until the quarter-finals to be sure if Spain are the real deal, as I don’t see Sweden or Greece giving their centre-backs the test they still need, particularly after having seen their stale game last night, which Sweden won 2-0. It was a very dull game, lit up briefly by Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s great goal from the edge of the penalty area (still second to Sneijder, but a worthy runner-up), but no amount of fireworks could make the Greek ‘football’ interesting. It was defensive to the point of incomprehensibility – spending 3 full minutes passing it between the three centre-backs at 0-0 thirty minutes in? Do they really intend to draw all three games to make it through? Mind you, they did look very limited in attack, but Charisteas, Gekas and Samaras were given so little opportunity to attack the defence that you have to wonder whether Otto Rehhagel is orchestrating this for a bet.

Greece got exactly what they deserved, and it will be a very tall order for them to get out of this group now. They may well beat Russia in their next game, who looked out of ideas without Arshavin and Pogrebnyak, but Spain in the final game? Not a chance. Good riddance.

Today we’re back to Group A, with Portugal-Czech Republic and Turkey-Switzerland. I’ll have a guess at 2-0 and 1-1 respectively, but I don’t expect any classics. Here’s hoping.