But if you’re looking for a further fix of football blogging don’t worry… we’ve got you covered.

For club football, visit us at The Offside where you’ll find a front page blog and active community of well over a hundred team blogs.

For more international football, read World Cup Blog. We’ll be covering World Cup 2010 qualification, Olympic soccer, the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, and plenty more. We have a load of international team blogs, and we’re always looking to add more.

Thanks for reading Euro 2008 on WCB and we hope to see you on our other sites.

Tis a wonderful thing to have a country oozing skill and technique capable of being considered a worthy contender without the qualifying phrase “but…but…but…it’s Spain!“. It simply makes tournaments that much more scintillating and victory for the winners (if not Spain) that much more delicious.

Now, if only Lichtenstein would get its fucking act together.

Michael Ballack is the new Spain

Epic talent whipped together in a rich mousse with chronic underachievement. There’s far too much stock put into individuals winning or losing tournaments – after all, Ballack didn’t slam on the brakes allowing Fernando Torres to squeak by in the passing lane on his way to the finish line – but his penchant for coming in a consistent bridesmaid is both a little curious and enormously shitty.

Costing your team the trophy won’t get you thrown off the official Team of the Tourney.

I like Philipp Lahm. But what the hell he was doing on the official UEFA Team of the Tourney couldn’t be explained by the bastardized lovechild of Albert Einstein and Marie Curie. Positively baked for two Turkish goals before failing to recognize a steaming Fernando Torres from behind, allowing the “1″ in a 1-0 final loss. Graeme Souness must have chaired the selection committee.

Clearly Sergio Ramos’s hair was the better choice.

Defense wins championships….but not THAT much defense.

Greece and Romania rolled in the champions of anti-football and rolled out on their shields before the group stages were over. Italy forgot to make a plan B for the comatose giant, Luca Toni, and went hard luck in the penalties. Russia was so caught up in attempting to thwart Spain’s attack that it forgot what to do in the Spanish final third and became as ineffective on the attack as Italy. Little bit of efficient offense every once in a while does absolute wonders.

One last time before we give it a deservedly agonizing death…..Euro 2008 is No Country For Old Men.

One can feel the canned cheese just dripping off that line while typing – but it really is true. France and Sweden never really got it going, which is totally understandable if you’ve ever tried to run in adult diapers. Italy started the oldest team ever against the Dutch and had to inject some youth to move beyond the groups. This ain’t your father’s game, so don’t bring your father’s team.

(I vote a team with absolutely no chance in 2010 or 2012 says fuck it and calls up the U-21 squad.)

Still waiting for Lahm to scream “I’VE ABANDONED MY BOY!“, though.

Bayern Munich is cursed.

Luca Toni: Dropped 390+ minutes of turd.
Miroslav Klose: Did you know he was replaced for 60 minutes of the final with a life-sized cardboard cutout?
Franck Ribery: Ankle injury, 6 weeks down the tube in France’s do or die game.
Philipp Lahm: Not trying to pick on him, I swear, but…UGH.
Marcell Jansen: Benched after the loss to Croatia only to be brought on in the second half of the final because the other Bayern leftback had a ginormous brain fart.
Lukas Podolski: Can we even say he “plays” for Bayern? Eight Bundesliga starts all year and he was one of Germany’s best player. D’oh.
Bastian Schweinsteiger: Alright alright. He was good and plays for Bayern. Not a total loss. Plus he wins the award for Best Introduction Of A WAG Who Instinctively Knows How To Find The Camera.

Now if Mario Gomez joins Bayern, I think we can all call his international career cooked at 14 caps. That is, unless he and Podolski become bench buddies next year under Jurgen. Then he’ll have a chance.

Being a host doesn’t mean jack….

….unless you’re good. Yes, Switzerland had some hard luck and Austria played well above its expected levels, but Austria scored a whole one goal off a PK resulting in one point and Switzerland was unceremoniously dumped from what could be considered the weakest group going in.

So for the first time, um, ever, at least one host did not make the semifinals. Let this serve as a warning to South Africa in 2010 and whoever the hell is deemed worthy to put on the show in 2010….unless they hire Guus Hiddink.

Technology is a must.

The game will stay the same, but they absolutely have to figure out a way to eliminate some of the human error in the game. Human error which was fairly astounding throughout and dictated the outcome of a few games. Penalties and offside goals, either disallowed when good or good when not, are the two points of greatest concern. That and some refs with 20/20 vision at best.

The Portuguese National team will now be known as Cristiano Ronaldo & Friends.

This was supposed to be Cristiano Ronaldo’s tournament coming off his splendid season. All that individual talent in a team featuring more great talent. The hype was enormous. The hype was unfulfilled. Well, at least according to the masses.

“It wasn’t that I played badly, it was because my team-mates didn’t play according to the plan,” was the 23-year-old’s assessment of the German loss.

I wonder whether the plan was the one he’d envisioned (passing the ball to him every time Portugal gained possession), which they didn’t follow, or the one which Big Phil schemed up, which they did. Probably the former.

After a tournament that was anything but indicative of a player about to win the Ballon D’Or, one would think some humility is in order for Cristiano. Not to be. Proving once again his class resides solely in his feet.

The European Championships aren’t the World Cup.

This wasn’t exactly a new revelation, but the differences are clear. There is nothing in professional sport which matches the celebration and quality of the World Cup. From the players to the fans, everything is heightened. But the Euros are a nice little teaser in between.

Til 2010…..

One thing which will always last from the tournament is the great slew of pictures featuring lovely young ladies. Now that we’re officially in the era where YouTube runs the world, why look at one picture at a time when you can have a bevy presented to you with a questionable soundtrack? Exactly.

Photo credit: UEFA.com

“Torsten. Dude. I know it helps you feel better about the loss, but the cameras are still rolling.”

“Thanks for the hand, man. Football doesn’t give me the upper body strength to heft this thing either.”

“Do you think anybody would notice if I slipped it down my pants and hid it there till I can stick it in my locker?”

“Whoa. You’re right. Weird. It does taste like lemon.”

“Son, it’s extremely insensitive of you to be making shadow animals on Torsten’s back right now.”

“That’s the best thing for those gas pains, Michael. Just squat and relax.”

“Those chicks in those documentaries are right! When your arms are weak, it IS easier to carry it on your head.”

“I know, Torsten. I didn’t place a bet on Turkey making the semis either.”

“I don’t know. They just appeared out of nowhere. I think we’ll be safe if we just keep walking away slowly and don’t make eye contact.”

And that was when Spain unveiled their secret weapon, Bozo the Clown.

“Oh, Bastian? Did you get those pics I sent you of me in my bathing suit?”

“The taste of sweat always helps me forget that we really sucked.”

“You stole WHAT from David Beckham?”

“If they play that Samba Gol song again, I’m gonna @#$%ing kill somebody.

“If I cover up the color, I bet people will think it’s gold.”

And guess who UEFA has named as player of the tournament this morning? That’s right: Xavi Hernández.

I’m pretty sure UEFA did this just to make me look bad. And it seems a slightly odd choice, perhaps influenced by being chosen so soon after the final?

But in a lot of ways Xavi makes perfect sense. There really wasn’t one outstanding, dominant player at Euro 2008. But there was some top notch teamwork, especially in Spain’s midfield.

Instead of trying to pick the player who stood out the most, as I did last night, seems UEFA have given their Player of the Tournament award to a man who symbolizes all that teamwork.

So as the man who made Spain’s midfield tick, Xavi deserves the prize. Lots of smart short passing that made Spain’s possession game possible, and some inch perfect through balls, like the one for Fernando Torres’ winner last night. “It was him who gave the team its tempo,” said Uefa technical director Andy Roxburgh. I’m not going to argue with him.

Well, maybe a little. I still stand by my original choice of Iker Casillas. Yes, Xavi had a good tournament, but there was at least one occasion (against Italy in the quarter-finals comes to mind) where he was replaced by Cesc Fabregas, and Cesc looked a lot more effective.

Meanwhile Casillas pulled out all kinds of great saves, and made zero blunders. There was never any danger of him being replaced by Pepe Reina for the final 30 minutes.

But as a representative of the kind of football that won the tournament, Xavi makes sense. So congratulations to him and to the whole Spanish squad for a great team performance.

UEFA also named a 23 man squad of the tournament, like so:

Gianluigi Buffon (Italy), Iker Casillas (Spain), Edwin van der Sar (Holland); Jose Bosingwa (Portugal), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Carlos Marchena (Spain), Pepe (Portugal), Carles Puyol (Spain), Yuri Zhirkov (Russia); Hamit Altintop (Turkey), Luka Modric (Croatia), Marcos Senna (Spain), Xavi (Spain), Konstantin Zyryanov (Russia), Michael Ballack (Germany), Cesc Fabregas (Spain), Andres Iniesta (Spain), Lukas Podolski (Germany), Wesley Sneijder (Holland); Andrei Arshavin (Russia), Roman Pavlyuchenko (Russia), Fernando Torres (Spain), David Villa (Spain)

• A final assessment. (Germany Blog)
• Top 10 flops of Euro 2008. (Soccerlens)
• The rightful victors… (Guardian Unlimited)
• ….And Jogi Low agrees. (BBC Sport)
• More to come from Spain? (Sideline Views)
• Babes of the final. (Orlando Sentinel)
• Euro 2008 a harsh reminder to England. (Reuters Soccer Blog)

And now that the Euros are over, feel free to hop back over to The Offside for your club football fix.

Not that that’s a bad thing. It just makes it very hard to choose a player of the tournament. UEFA will get together and announce their official Player of the Tournament at 11:00 CET Monday morning. But until then, let’s do some speculating.

Right now, it’s hard not to think about Spanish players. They only won the tournament a few hours back, so some good performances are still fresh in the memory. David Villa has got the golden boot with four goals, but three of those came in the first game. There’s an argument that Fernando Torres has been better as the games got bigger.

Andres Iniesta has been impressive down the left and right, but Marcos Senna has arguably been Spain’s best mid, doing some incredible and crucial work as defensive mid. Would be a bit weird if the Euro 2008 Player of the Tournament was actually Brazilian, but that’s no reason to stop him winning it.

Long-haired muscle man Carles Puyol has been Spain’s most impressive defender, but I’d argue Iker Casillas has been more consistent and come up with some massive saves. He’s looked like the best keeper in the world these past three weeks.

Germany’s Michael Ballack has to be a contender too. Today he played with a knot in his calf and a cut above his eye, so wasn’t operating at full capacity. But, as in 2002, he’s the main reason a not particularly brilliant Germany team made it to the final. He’s dominated more than one game and scored twice from midfield. Bastian Schweinsteiger’s had some good moments, but – as with his whole career – he’s hasn’t been consistently impressive.

Russian attacking mid Andrei Arshavin missed the first two games through suspension, but was the talk of the tournament for a few days especially after taking the Netherlands to pieces with his passing, dribbling, creativity and nose for goal. Not to mention scary facial expressions. I’d argue that performance against the Netherlands was the performance of the tournament. And he was equally creative against Sweden, but then hopeless against Spain in the semi.

Two out of three ain’t bad (thanks Meatloaf) but two games total from a whole tournament might not be enough. Left winger/left back/whatever Yuriy Zhirkov was at least as impressive and definitely did it more times than Arshavin, so definitely deserves some consideration.

Euro 2008 was a great team perfomance from Turkey, but there was some individual brilliance in there. Nihat Kahveci made us forget all about Hakan Sukur and his pace and finishing were consistently fearsome. Who knows what Turkey could have done had he not got injured. Arda Turan looked more promising than polished, but definitely stood out. Arguably Turkey’s best player was Hamit Altintop, who seemed to be everywhere at once. Identical twin Halil was supposedly injured, but I’m not so sure…

Does Luka Modric deserve a mention. Definitely, he wowed us more than once and always looked comfy with the ball, did the biz against Germany but couldn’t quite pull it out against Turkey. To pretty much live up to all that pre-tournament hype takes some doing though. Tottenham Hotspur will be happy, no?

And we nearly forgot the Netherlands. Until they met Arshavin and Zhirkov, they looked like a team ready to go all the way. Wesley Sneijder put in the sort of attacking mid performances that won La Liga for Real Madrid last year, all creativity and sweet shooting. And Gio van Brockhurst put in a couple of performances that made you forget he was just Gio van Bronckhurst. But the fact that others did enough to go further will probably rule them both out.

I’d make the argument for Iker Casillas (hence the photo up top). While every other player has a “but” after their recommendation, Spain’s captain and keeper is the only player you can say did absolutely everything right at Euro 2008. We’ll find out if UEFA agree tomorrow morning.

Anyone I’ve missed out?

Carles Puyol
Carlos Marchena
Sergio Ramos
Joan Capdevila

Knockout stages: 0 goals conceded

Iker gets some credit as well, but the most attack-gifted team in the tournament was riding the coattails of the Fearsome Foursome. Much like Italy in 2006, their defense was the difference between winning and second place.

And though this may sound like a broken record……DEFENSE WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS.

Fan of the Day: Above. Hey, at least he’s trying, right? Wonder if he got in. (Think I saw him sitting next to Angela Merkel, but don’t want to spread any rumors.)

Player of the Day: Fernando Torres. Sometimes, all it takes is one moment of brilliance….and one defensive slip up.

Unfair Advantage Award: Spain. Since Enrique Iglesias is Spanish, UEFA should’ve kept things fair by allowing David Hasselhoff to perform. The man helped bring down the Berlin Wall, he damn sure could’ve helped bring down Spain.

Goat of the Day: Philipp Lahm. One of the revelations of 2006 was anything but this time around. Fullback isn’t typically a position where coaches hope to make a major difference going forward, so to be subbed at halftime says quite a bit about the defensive end of his day. That defensive end costing them the title. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Hard Luck Crew of the Tournament: The German midfield which was already banged up going in; Ballack had a calf injury and his partner, Frings, was sporting broken ribs. Late in the first half Ballack, like Simon Rolfes, got hammered in the face and began squirting blood like a tomato can. Either the fates were conspiring or Germans cut easily.

Awkward Photo/Caption of the Day: From Yahoo…

Germany’s Michael Ballack,rear, comforting teammate Torsten Frings, reacts at the end of the Euro 2008 final between Germany and Spain in the Ernst-Happel stadium in Vienna.

I think they’ve mistaken the comforter and the comfortee.

Traffic Cop of the Day: Jens Lehamann. Not only is he directing traffic in front of his net, but he does so with the most obnoxiously bright neon shirt he can find.

Disappointment of the Day: I realize very few Spanish fans will probably agree with this, but it would’ve been nice to see Spain go from nothing to winning the World Cup instead of the Euros. I mean, the EC is a sexy lady, but she ain’t the World Cup. The celebrations in Madrid will surely ring throughout the night, but not winning for 44 years and then winning The Holy Grail would’ve blown the lid off.

Also, Luis Aragones should never have been allowed to stay in his position, much less win a trophy. Very few deserve this less than he does.

Matchup of the Day:

V

Photo credit: FRANCK FIFE/AFP/Getty Images

It’s really happened. Spain are Euro 2008 champions with a well earned 1-0 win over Germany.

Review of the game and video of Fernando Torres’ winning goal below…

FINAL	June 29th, 2045 CET, Vienna (Austria)
Germany 0 VS Spain 1   Torres 32′

Only 1-0 in the end, but probably the most convincing 1-0 win I’ve seen in a long time. Spain were just… better.

Pre-match thoughts that Frings and Ballack would physically dominate the diddy-men of Spain’s midfield proved false. Cesc Fabregas maybe didn’t do much, but Xavi pulled several strings while Marcos Senna did the much needed enforcement. After Senna’s performance, one 11th of this trophy should go to Brazil.

Rough day for Micheal Ballack. He started even though his fitness was questionable, and had a decent game. But didn’t put in the expected domineering performance. Ballack’s record in big finals is now: runner up in the 2002 and 2008 Champions League finals, suspended for the 2002 World Cup final despite dragging an average German team there with his bare hands feet and no runner-up in the Euro 2008 final.

In truth, Germany haven’t been particularly impressive at Euro 2008. They dismantled Portugal but lost to Croatia, got lucky against Turkey and were average against Poland and Austria.

Spain on the other hand have been electric. Lots of possession and short passes, lots of inventiveness and incisive through balls, a solid enough defence (looking at you Carles Puyol and Iker Casillas) and a constant attacking threat.

The goal that made the difference today came from Fernando Torres. He out-muscled and out-hustled Phillip Lahm for a through ball and chipped it over Mad Jens who had made a mad dash to come out and meet him. Anyone who still says Torres isn’t a natural goalscorer should be quiet now.

Tough as it is to praise a grumpy old racist like Luis Aragones, the Spain coach made all the right moves today. With David Villa injured he picked a five man midfield and didn’t give Germany enough room. I thought starting Torres up front on his own was a mistake, but clearly I was wrong.

So, after 44 years of disappointment, Spain are European champions. All the old adages about Spain “falling apart” and “struggling when it matters” and all that stuff can be thrown in the bin. Spain are European Champions for the next four years, and a very serious force in world football for the foreseeable future.