viva espana - euro 2008

Congratulations to Spain for winning the Euro 2008 yesterday! They were considered a team with the potential to win but who always flopped at the big stage. Well, they've fulfilled their potential and proven their critics wrong. And did they deserve to win? Of course they did! They were the only team that played well throughout the tournament, and they also played wonderful with very neat passing. They're not as fast and exciting as the Dutch and Portuguese at times, but overall, they are the worthy champions.

For me, this is the best Euro that I've watched. It's much better than Euro 2004 where a team who played defensively (read: boring) won the tournament. Most of the group matches were very thrilling, especially Group C (Holland, Italy, France, Romania). A lot have changed in 2 years. The previous World Cup finalists, Italy and France, both lost to Holland and drew with Romania. Holland played really well and most of their goals were just fantastic, especially Sneijder's and Robben's. And Boulahrouz played really well at right back. It was hard to believe that this was the same person who played central defence at Chelsea a few years ago.

All the champions of the groups won their first two games and rested most of their first team players during the third one. And all of them, except for Portugal, won their third group match. Now of course it's understandable that the coach would want to rest his first team so that in theory, they'll be less tired in the next games. Also, those on the bench want to play as well. It's great if one is included in a team in the Euros but it'd be better if one could play as well instead of just warming the bench. However, in the quarter-finals, out of all the group champions, only Spain progressed to the semis. Maybe it's because the others lost their momentum? Portugal and Holland didn't play as well as they did in the group stage. There wasn't much flair and the chances that they had were wasted. Croatia played okay, but were beaten by a very determined Turkish team.

Turkey. Wow. I think they're the most hardworking team in the tournament. Their mental strength is damn high. With players injured and suspended, they still played the same way. Be it the first or second team (or the third team if they had one), you can see that they weren't afraid of their opponents and never gave up even though they were behind. The important thing was that they played to win, which means they played attacking football, unlike Italy in the game against Spain, and Germany in all of their games except the one against Portugal. I really think the Turks deserved to win the semi-final match against Germany because of the way they played throughout the game. The Germans rode their luck all the way to the final and hurrah to Spain for beating them.

Now that this Euro is finished, I hope that the next one will be as entertaining, or even better. It's very nice to see a team who play very good football winning the cup, and I hope there's a lot more exciting football matches with plenty of drama in the World Cup in 2010 and Euro 2012.