KIEV, Ukraine — Spain’s achievement of winning Euro 2012 deserves nothing but credit — no team has made boring so fun to watch.
Spain is the first European nation to retain its crown after winning the World Cup, and Sunday’s 4-0 rout of Italy only confirmed the Spanish are changing the face of modern football.
Spain has again marveled us, just when critics and boo-birds were so quick to call their quick-touch passing game — labeled tiki taka back home — dreary.
By dropping a traditional striker, coach Vicente del Bosque had left out the forward threat that every team believed it needed to create goals. Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said Spain had betrayed its own style by putting the emphasis on roving midfielders Andres Iniesta, Xavi Hernandez, Cesc Fabregas and David Silva.
Ironically, each of those four players got a touch to create Silva’s opening goal at Olympic Stadium.
All four teams that reached the European Championship final had played attacking football, and Spain’s continued success using this style should only carry that system further forward going into the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
For this, we should be thankful to these Spanish pioneers.
The problem for the rest of the field is they are still playing catch-up.
Try to emulate their game and attack, and Spain devours the extra space with conviction as it showed against Italy and Ireland. Sit back and try to smother them with defence, and they patiently pick you apart as France learned in the quarterfinals.
Four years after this brand of football announced its arrival on the international stage, no team has come any closer to finding a solution for stifling it.
So while Spain saved its best for last by waiting to wow us with the most lopsided final win in a European or World Cup final, the result should come as no surprise. While Spain’s players and Del Bosque harp on about staying true to their philosophy of play, that unflinching commitment to possession and passing has allowed Spain to prosper as champions.
Spain opened the tournament with a 1-1 draw against Italy, when Del Bosque dropped the bombshell of leaving Fernando Torres on the bench in favour of Fabregas. The mustachioed Spanish coach was made to defend that decision right up until the final victory over Italy, when he was then asked if he had in fact changed football with the decision.
“There is no one unique way of playing football, the only important thing is to create ways of scoring and I’m lucky to count on intelligent players in that sense,” said Del Bosque, who matched West Germany’s Helmut Schoen as the only coach to have won European and world titles.
Spain’s players have never let panic or fear creep into their mindset. It’s a marvel to see how calm and controlled these champions are. They trailed only once in the entire tournament after conceding their only goal to Italy in that Group C opener to Italy, and needed only three minutes to equalize.
At the Olympic Stadium, an ‘Eye of the Tiger’ look took to Spain, as if they wanted to prove doubters wrong. A day after Xavi admittted he hadn’t been at his best in Poland and Ukraine, the Barcelona maestro delivered assists on two of Spain’s four goals against Italy.
And after chasing all of these midfielders around for so long, Spain can deploy a striker like Torres off the bench who stretches the defence’s tired legs further to create even more space and scoring opportunities. The Chelsea striker scored and set up Juan Mata for the fourth to finish the tournament with the Golden Boot as top scorer with three goals.
Such was the convincing manner of the victory, that the celebration following the penalty shootout victory over Portugal seemed more emphatic.
Instead of embracing his journalist girlfriend as he did after the World Cup win two years ago when he was reduced to tears, goalkeeper Iker Casillas gave her a hug and two pecks on the cheek before returning to celebrate with his teammates.
No surprises.
Italy’s arrival to the final was perhaps the biggest surprise of a tournament that went well except for a number of empty seats for matches played in the Ukraine, including Sunday’s final. It still almost seems as if Spain still would have gotten its biggest test against Germany.
Now, there is no reason to think that Spain cannot become the first team to follow up back-to-back European titles with World Cup triumphs.
Xavi will be 34 but his natural successor Fabregas remains, while David Villa could return although he will be 32. Apart from Iniesta and fellow regulars Xabi Alonso and Sergio Busquets, the bench includes Mata, Santi Cazorla, Jordi Alba, Pedro Rodriguez and Jesus Navas. Casillas leads the world class defence that hasn’t conceded a goal in 10 elimination games — Zinedine Zidane was the last player to score against Spain in a knockout round game at the 2006 World Cup.
To triumph in Brazil, where the hosts will be looking to capture their sixth title and first on home soil, would leave no discussion over this generation’s place in history as the greatest side ever. Brazil and Germany will look to end the run, while Lionel Messi-led Argentina and Cristiano Ronaldo-led Portugal will feel they have a shot too.
But one should never doubt the Spanish, especially now.