Euro 2008 Wrapup

The deserving team won. Spain played a very good tournament, got lucky in the right moments, and ultimately outclassed each team that came in their way. It was nice to see a team based mostly upon purely skillful players win the cup. They also had the star forward in Fernando Torres, and although he didn't have a great tournament, he still came through in the key moment and got the goal that so many that have come before him couldn't get. He scored when Spain really needed a goal to put the Germans back on their heels and that is the mark of a great player. Its often forgotten that Zidane missed 2 games in the 1998 World Cup or that Lillian Thuram scored 2 goals in the semi-finals against Croatia to lead them to the Final against Brazil. What is remembered the most are the 2 goals that Zidane scored in the final against Brazil and so Torres will be remembered today as the man who brought Spain their first international trophy since 1964. It wasn't Butragueno or Raul, but Torres who scored to goal and brought home the trophy. For that he will always be a hero in Spain.

I thought overall it was a great tournament with a lot of exciting games and goals. When the highlight DVD comes out I think that we will all appreciate the tournament a bit more. I won't soon forget Holland vs France, Germany vs Turkey, the Russian team, Turkey's comeback against Croatia. Individual performances from Andrei Arshavin, David Villa, Phillip Lahm's goal against Turkey, injured heroes such as Michael Ballack and Zlatan Ibrahimovic pushing their bodies to the maximum after long, grueling seasons of club football. Personally, it was an absolute pleasure to see Henrik Larsson in a Swedish jersey one more time, even if he couldn't do the unthinkable and lead his team through the tournament.

A few things were lacking such as a host team that really was deserving to be there. I also didn't agree with the format of having the semi-finals be setup so that we had a repeat of Spain vs Russia, it would have been nicer to switch up the groups a bit. I also missed the presence of the English team if not for anything else then the star quality and tradition that comes with them. There were a few other teams; Bulgaria, Denmark, Ukraine, that would have been nice to see instead of inferior Swiss and Austrian teams. When you see the success that Croatia and Russia had, you can understand why England had a hard time in their group and couldn't make it. However, I don't think this adds to the case of expanding the tournament to 24 teams. 16 teams are enough for these players as fatigue starts to set in and the quality of play would suffer were they made to play an additional elimination game.

Looking back years from now, I think history will be kind to this tournament and to its champions as well as the German team that so nearly added to their international trophy cabinet. I also think we will continue to see the trend of the smaller nations being able to keep up with the big boys, even if they didn't quite make it to the finals.