Three things we learned from the tournament
Way back in August, Pep Guardiola first experimented with a strikerless formation against Villarreal. It produced a devastating victory. But, for a number of reasons that ranged from fatigue to injury, it couldn’t produce the key victories in thecompetitions that mattered most... until now.
Guardiola’s philosophy was that, since midfielders tended to have the finest technique on the pitch, filling a team with them could see full control of a game.
Spain, of course, took that to rare heights last night. But, even so, this has been the tournament of the midfielder. Other than Jordi Alba and many of the Spanish backline — who are almost midfielders themselves —what defenders and forwards have been among the best players in the tournament?
No one has matched the level of the likes of Andrea Pirlo and Andreas Iniesta. And, last night, the latter went even higher.
Over the course of the 2011-12 club season, a series of the most high-profile games have been decided by defensive teams riding their luck. As Giovanni Trapattoni himself made reference to many times, the most obvious examples were in Chelsea’s run to the Champions League.
Euro 2012, however, has seen the opposite. Teams that have played defensive football have all been exposed. Most of all, there was Ireland.
Their poor defeats proved that, if you’re going to base your game on solidity, you’d better actually be solid. The same applied, however, for all of England, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Greece.
Time and again, adventurous football was rewarded. And it made for a fine tournament.
After the performance that closed the tournament, it’s incredible to think that so much of it was spent actually arguing over Spain’s style and exact quality.
No, there can be no doubt. We have witnessed history. We have lived through a time of the greatest international team ever. This should be cherished.
Not only did Spain become the first team to win three trophies in-a-row. They did it in a manner that probably surpassed Brazil 1970 and 1958. It was the most emphatic and biggest final win in a modern international tournament.
It was perfection.
