They weren’t at their best, Germany were the favourites and some even had the audacity to call them boring.
But last night Spain produced the kind of performance we’d grown accustom to seeing, and in the process blew a weary Italian side away and rewrote several entries in the games history books.
Their 4-0 win was the biggest ever in a Euro final, they are the first side to win 3 major tournaments in a row, they are the first team to win successive European Championships, Fernando Torres is the first player to score in two Euro finals, Vicente Del Bosque is the first manager to win the Champions League, World Cup and European Championships and then there’s Iker Casillas the Spanish shot-stopper must now hold the record for having the most records.
Not only has he captained this Spain side to three in a row, he’s made the most appearances for his country, he has the most international wins (100), the most international clean sheets (79), he has set the record for most minutes without conceding a goal at the Euro’s (509, which I’m sure he’ll extend in 2016) and tied Edwin Van Der Sar for the most clean sheets at the Euro’s, (9, which could well be broken at Euro 2016) and the most knockout games at World Cups and Euro’s without conceding, the last player to score past him in a knock-out game was the great Zidane in 2006.
Admittedly up until the final Spain didn’t move the ball with the same speed or look as dangerous as they did at the last Euro’s and World Cup, which was the result of not having David Villa their record goal scorer.
But against Italy that all change the speed of passing was back, the cutting edge was back, the movement was back and they tore through Italy at will and played some of the best football you could ever hope to see.
I felt a little bit sorry for Italy, they exceeded all expectations to make it to the final but ran into a Spain side that were determined to make history and weren’t going to let anyone stop them, no team at Euro 2012 would have beat Spain the way they played last night, Italy were also unlucky to have to play the last 30 mins with 10 men.
As soon as the final whistle blew the debate started as to whether this Spain team are the best ever, in my opinion I would have to say yes, there football is a joy to watch and as a football purist to see a team play what they and I call the right way and enjoy all this success is the best thing for the game.
I wasn’t fortunate enough to see the 1970 Brazil side or the 1974 Dutch side, so it makes my decision to call this Spain side the best ever even easier, in 20, 30, 40 years time I will always be able to look back and say I saw this Spain side play.
Despite all the fears and headlines before the tournament started about racism and violence, I think the tournament hosts Poland and Ukraine should be proud of the jobs they did as hosts.
The tournament was virtually incident free and the atmosphere at the games was amazing.
Finally, as I’m sure everybody will have done, I have selected my team of the tournament and it is as follows:
Casillas (c)
Lahm Pique Hummels Alba
Mouthinho
Xavi Pirlo
Ronaldo Torres Iniesta (player of the tournament)
Subs:
Buffon
Ramos
Chiellini
Gerrard
Fabregas
Jiracek
Gomez
Coach:
Vicente Del Bosque
No comments:
Post a Comment