Euro 2008 Thoughts

So Euro 2008 is over and what have we learnt from the tournament?

We have learnt that the beautiful game is alive and kicking. Euro 2008 was a terrific tournament flush with entertaining games. We opened up slowly but on the third night the games sparked into life, we got The Netherlands v Italy. I sat here and work with my colleague Harry watching it and to be blunt we were blown away by the quality of football on show. The Dutch won 3-0 and they impressed everyone no end.

A day later we saw the eventual winners Spain dismantle Russia and we knew we had a couple of good sides in this thing. Croatia then beat Germany for the first upset of the tournament following a very professional 2-1 victory. The Dutch then followed up their Italian display with arguable and even better performance against the French on a Friday night, beating them 4-1. These Dutch were special.

Turkey would then provide a little taste of the drama they would provide in Euro 2008. They had already beaten Switzerland in the game that shouldn't of been played as the pitch was unplayable. The Turks won it deep into injury time, something they would do again.

That Czech Republic v Turkey game will go down in history as one of the best finishes of an international match ever. Both teams needed to win to qualify, a draw would've taken us to a dramatic penalty shoot-out after just 90 minutes to decide who qualified. The Czech's were 2-0 up with 20 minutes to go and still had the lead going into the final three minutes. What happened next was just breathtaking.

Petr Cech made the howler of all howlers as he failed to claim a cross allowing Nihat to stab home into in the unguarded net. The Turks didn't celebrate though, they went and got the ball and ran back to the centre circle, they thought they could win it. Two minutes later and Nihat was in, having broken the offside trap and the Turkish striker with glory beckoning opened up his body and fired a curling effort in off the underside of the crossbar, Turkey had won it against odds.

That was a quite exhilarating game that was football at its most dramatic. It summed up the tournament for me, a team never giving up and just going for it. It was a major tournament that favoured the attacking teams and not the defensive ones. Teams opened up and played. Did the weather help? You bet it did.

With cool and often rainy conditions, players were less tired and could go for the full 90 minutes. The last major tournaments saw a World Cup in Germany, which was going through a major heatwave, a European Championships in Portugal, again another heatwave, and then in 2002 the sultry conditions of Japan and Korea.

In the knock-out stage we saw yet more outstanding play. Portugal went out to Germany is another barnstorming game. Croatia will still be unsure how they failed to make the semi's, scoring and taking the lead in the 119th minute is usually a pretty good time to score. With only about 45 seconds left of the game, your money would be on them to hold out but they were playing those Turks and an equaliser was coming. Turkey won the shoot-out.

The beautiful Dutch were up next against the Russians and boy did the Russians do a job on them. The Netherlands had gone from sixth favourites to firm favourites following their total destruction of the so called 'Group of Death'. They faced Russia as the firm people's favourites for their wonderful style of play, the problem was they just failed to perform on the night as Russia beat them at their own game. An upbeat attacking style that the Dutch failed to live with. The favourites were out.

Spain then beat Italy on penalties in a pretty lacklustre final quarter-final.

The semi's were really a tale of two games. Germany and Turkey played out a thoroughly exciting and entertaining game in which the German's were lucky to go through. An injury and suspension riddled Turkish side gave Germany a quite fantastic game and deserved far more than what they got. Spain crushed Russia in the other game after a pretty lacklustre display from the Russians who clearly saw the Dutch game as their final.

Then we got to the Final which is still pretty fresh in our minds. Germany were never in the game in reality and even though Spain only won by the solitary goal, they never looked in danger of losing the game. They were a good and deserved winner. It was a real shame that the Netherlands and Spain never got to match-up in the semi finals - as that would've been a special game.

Overall it was a thoroughly enjoyable tournament. Some good teams, some cracking games, some quite frankly unbelievable finishes and some show. Without a doubt it has been the best major tournament of the decade and it coincides with England not being in it. I wonder if that has been a good thing?