Euro 2008

So was it any good, then?
Unquestionably, yes. This was a tournament in which teams got exactly what they deserved; the brave teams, the ones who were prepared to play football, get players forward and attempt to entertain the paying public invariably beat the teams who were overcome by nerves and tried to kill the games. If there was a single match in the whole tournament won by an undeserving victor, it escapes me now.

The goal tally is perhaps too crude a measure of the quality of an international tournament but a brief glance at the statistics shows that Euro 2008 had its fair share, its final tally of 77 matching exactly that of four years beforehand in Portugal, showing that the brief panic over a lack of goals in the last World Cup (which had 0.2 fewer goals per game than Euro 2004 or 2008) was an over-reaction to a tournament for which a lot of poor sides qualified.

The atmosphere in Switzerland and Austria was, by and large, lively but peaceful, with only a few incidents of hooliganism. It would be simplistic to put this down to England’s absence as their fans have been largely well behaved in every tournament since they laid waste to Charleroi during Euro 2000 - the truth is more likely to lie in ever-improving policing techniques. It can only be hoped that the South African authorities will know what they’re doing in 2010, though the distance should deter most troublesome European ‘supporters’ from travelling. The Dutch fans were extraordinary, especially during their group matches in Berne.

What really make a tournament are the so-called ‘magic moments’ and there were plenty. Just a few that spring to mind - Pepe’s extraordinary goal for Portugal against Turkey which brought to mind the very best German attacking sweepers Lothar Matthäus and Matthias Sammer; Holland disembowelling the ageing and creaking Italians and French with two superb displays of joyous, ruthless attacking football; David Villa’s clinical hat-trick for Spain against Russia in Innsbruck; Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s belter against Greece which brought to life what had been an extremely dull match; the near-flood in the Switzerland-Turkey match and Arda’s last minute winner; Croatia’s fine win over Germany in Klagenfurt; Gianluigi Buffon’s penalty save from a distraught Adrian Mutu; the ‘mad minute’ in Berne which saw Arjen Robben score a seemingly impossible goal within seconds of Thierry Henry getting France back in the game; Turkey’s late comebacks against the Czech Republic and Croatia; the wonderful quarter-finals between Germany and Portugal, and the Netherlands and Russia, and then again in the semi final between Germany and Turkey.

In one respect the most significant and final goal of the tournament was also the best. By no strand of logic should Spain’s Fernando Torres have overtaken Germany’s left-back Philipp Lahm like an outside-lane Ferrari zipping past a petrol-tanker on a crowded M62 but the Liverpool striker showed he has pace to burn and then finished clinically, lifting the ball over Jens Lehmann. There were more explosive finishes in the tournament - such as Michael Ballack’s ballistic free-kick in the Austria-Germany game - and finer team goals but on no occasion did a player score in such difficult circumstances. Torres did not have a magnificent tournament - he was substituted every time he played - but his immortality is assured.

Can’t all have been beer and skittles, surely?
Well, no, but largely down to UEFA being rather silly. The format of the tournament was pointlessly changed so that the semi finals would be contested between two teams from adjacent groups, effectively dividing the tournament in half until the Final. The effect of this was that we all knew in January that we could not have a Final between Germany and Portugal, or Italy and Spain, or the Netherlands and France. A return to the structure of Euro 2004 when we all land in Poland and Ukraine in four years time would be well-advised; it would have prevented Spain having to beat Russia twice in 17 days this time around, and the period between the two games might have been just four days had the teams been drawn into different positions in the group.

Experience shows us that when two teams meet twice in a summer tournament the second match is not usually very good - see Greece v Portugal in the 2004 Final or Brazil’s World Cup semi-finals against Sweden in 1994 or Turkey in 2002 - but at least in Euro 2004 the re-match was kept back until the Final when it was unavoidable. In a second meeting, both sides will be more likely to know the opposition’s strengths and set about nullifying them.

Furthermore, it somehow didn’t feel quite right that Italy and France, having negotiated the same qualifying section, were lumped together again in Group C; the same in Group D with Spain and Sweden. It would have been the simplest of endeavours for UEFA to contrive a method of keeping teams from the same qualifying group apart in the draw last December.

Didn’t UEFA get anything right?
They can hardly be blamed for the electrical storm in Vienna that disrupted live television coverage but it did inject a degree of farce into an otherwise well-organized tournament, at least in terms of the physical staging of the matches. The speed with which the waterlogged pitch was returned to something approaching playable conditions by the Basel ground staff during half-time of the Switzerland-Turkey match was truly laudable.

If abandoning the perfectly serviceable knock-out phase structure of the previous three tournaments was a folly, UEFA were wiser in returning to the notion, abandoned after Euro 96, that each group should be held wholly in two reasonably proximate stadia, with the group seeds staying in the same place for all of their matches.

With hindsight, it is also easier to defend UEFA’s stance on the seeding at the finals draw last December. Raymond Domenech was incandescent at France being down in the fourth pot with Poland, Turkey and Russia but UEFA rightly base their seeding solely on the results of competitive football matches. France drew too many matches in the World Cup qualifiers against limited opposition from Switzerland, Ireland and Israel, and lost twice to Scotland this time around. They had nobody to blame but themselves.

Besides, it is not as if the laboured senility of their performances screamed at us that they would have done better if only given a slightly more charitable draw. Their 0-0 draw with Romania, one of only three really poor matches in the tournament and by far the single worst, was particularly wretched considering they would have known two tougher challenges lay ahead. Group C’s final table went with seeding; Holland first, Italy second, Romania, then France. And just think, Monsieur Domenech, you were lucky to get Romania. The other three teams in Pot 3 were Germany, Portugal and Spain.

Sorry to bring it up, but how would England REALLY have done?
Rather poorly, based on the evidence of a tournament full of fine attacking football. Suppose for a minute Mladen Petric hadn’t scored at Wembley: Steve McClaren would still have been in charge and England would still be playing the same medieval, one-dimensional football that saw them come unstuck in Zagreb and Moscow and, to a lesser extent, in the dismal goalless draws with Macedonia in Manchester and Israel in Tel Aviv. England are inarguably among the best sixteen teams in Europe - they would surely have caused Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Greece and even France a problem or three - but this is a pointless quibble. You have to earn qualification and McClaren’s England simply would not have deserved to share a stage with Spain, Portugal, Holland, Russia, Turkey or Germany.

Where do we go from here?
Well, Poland and Ukraine in 2012. Probably. UEFA are far from convinced that the two countries are prepared for the next European Championship and Italy, unofficially at this stage, remains on standby. However, such is the state of Italy’s municipal stadia outside Milan and Rome that Germany, regardless of having just held a World Cup, is surely a safer option.

Thereafter, it is almost certain that the competition will be expanded from 16 to 24 countries for Euro 2016. This is a controversial move which some believe will dilute the quality but rank outsiders Austria just about held their own this year and there were many better teams than them - England, Scotland, Denmark, Bulgaria, Serbia, Ukraine - all sitting at home. If a team is not good enough to win the European Championship, let it be determined at the European Championship, not in some out-of-the-way qualifying match in Moldova or Cyprus.

And finally, the (Very Unofficial) Footballing World Euro 2008 Awards…
GOLDEN BOOT: As you may have noticed, it’s Spain’s David Villa with four goals.

PLAYER OF THE TOURNAMENT: With honourable mentions for Andrei Arshavin, Roman Pavlyuchenko, Wesley Sneijder and most of the Spanish team, it goes to Hamit Altintop of Turkey. Ludicrously omitted from UEFA’s Team of the Tournament, the Turkish utility man played at right-back, right-wing and central midfield, bringing energy, commitment and real attacking quality to an extraordinarily boisterous Turkish side. He set up all three goals in the comeback against the Czechs in Geneva, which should be worth a commendation on its own.

GOALKEEPER OF THE TOURNAMENT: Iker Casillas did not have a great deal to do in some of Spain’s matches, so it goes to Poland’s Artur Boruc, without whom the Poles’ already forgettable tournament would have been a disaster.

DUFFER OF THE TOURNAMENT: S’il vous plaît, messieurs, formez une queue ordonnée. But, if you insist on just one, it has to be the most ineffectual left-winger since Michael Foot, Florent Malouda, who, you’ll be delighted to hear, may be about to leave the Premier League.

GOAL OF THE TOURNAMENT: After long consideration, Torres’ magnificent finish in the Final and thunderbolt strikes from Ibrahimovic and Ballack come in just behind Robin van Persie’s goal against France, if only for the superb pirouette-flick from Ruud van Nistelrooy to Arjen Robben.

GAME OF THE TOURNAMENT: Not the best in terms of pure footballing quality, but the semi-final between Germany and Turkey was unforgettable. Played in inclement weather against a blistering performance from the Turks, Germany were ramshackle but still managed to win 3-2 with two fine team goals from Bastian Schweinsteiger and Philipp Lahm.

MOMENT OF THE TOURNAMENT: Without question, it’s the end of extra-time in the Croatia-Turkey quarter-final in Athens. There has never been an ending to a match quite like it; a passage of play that summed up everything special about a Turkey team who made themselves so impossible not to like. Nor had four such dramatic footballing minutes ever been quite so out of context with the dirge that had proceded it.

Tags: Artur Boruc, Croatia, David Villa, England, Euro 2008, Euro 2012, Florent Malouda, France, Germany, Hamit Altintop, Holland, Poland, Robin Van Persie, Spain, Turkey, Uefa, Ukraine

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