Euro 2008: where were the great nations?
The Euro is over. Of football, that is (“soccer”, for those who think “football” is played holding a ball in one’s hands).
Some amazing games, a few fabulous teams, and a couple of surprises.
But all in all, one question kept creeping back into my mind: what ever happened to the great teams of two to ten years ago?
If today’s wars (the European ones at least) are played on a football pitch, it seems the balance of power has changed.
I’ve never been a big “watching sports on the TV” fan. For me, sports are best done by oneself, and it’s really hard for me to get excited about anything. However, the “footballistic” Euro and World Cup have always kept me interested, since 1998 at least. It might be because football is considered the “Sport Roi” (“king of sports”) on the European Continent, but who knows?
Since I became a Euro&WorldCup fan, I’ve seen a number of different teams challenge the firmly established domination of Brazil, Italy, Germany and England. I don’t count France, because I’ve never liked them. They were great under Michel Platini apparently, but I regard their “Zidane era” as a moment where France got lucky, and didn’t really play better than the others (they fouled a lot more in general).
This Euro edition, however, showed that the world of football has truly changed.
England never made the qualifications for the Euro (and since I don’t watch the preliminary games, I’ve no idea how badly they played).
Italy played the most terrible games I’ve seen from them since forever.
Germany had no defending talent whatsoever. Given that England was absent, Germany became one of my two “substitute” teams (along with Holland), though it was more by tradition and hope of continuation of the Klinsmann era than anything else.
Three teams out of the sixteen qualified stood out for me: Croatia, Holland and Spain.
Croatia showed so much promise that I couldn’t believe their disqualification. They were a true team and had the greatest defence of the tournament.
Their passes impressed me as much as the Romanians, showing that they could stay in control of the ball and play better than a number of formerly powerful teams.
Holland was my favourite right from the start, but I was dismayed to see Russia beat them. Edwin van der Sar is one of the greatest goalkeepers I’ve seen in my short “fan span”, and I feel really sorry for him as this was his very last international game.
Spain, however, I never wanted to see win, because I felt they were too much a bunch of high fliers. Individual stars.
If you’ve ever watched a match with the Brazilians, you’ll know that Brazil has stars in its team, and they win because of the individuals first and foremost (the team comes second).
Well, it was the same for Spain. Too much of an accent on the individuals (Villa, Torres, Senna, …). It’s something you see in many teams, but I felt it was most unbalanced in the Spanish team. Given that Portugal was also very much inflicted with this disease (“Cristiano Ronaldo!”), you may well understand my joy at seeing Germany beat Portugal.
Torres proved this during the final, but it shows that these tactics work for them. An amazing goal that showed just how weak the German defence was.
Despite all this, I must congratulate the Spanish. Casillas proved to be an amazing goalkeeper throughout the tournament (and, unlike the other game positions, I admire star goalkeepers), and the rest of the team showed how talented they were (notably the Spanish defence, especially against the Germans).
Indeed it seems as though the dominion of the great teams is no more.
What’s more, the two surprises of the tournament were the other two semi-finalists, Turkey and Russia. I secretly hoped we would see a “Turkey v. Russia” final as a sign that anything was possible, and that Europe was not limited to the EU (yes, I know that Croatia is not part of the EU either). And apparently, Turkey deserved to be in the final.
Who is to say what we will see in the World Cup 2010 or Euro 2012? All I know is that more surprises are yet to come, both regarding European and other teams.