¡Viva España!

There is really no other way to say it. Spain completely and utterly deserved to win this tournament. I couldn’t have been any more impressed with them. The 1-0 scoreline was mildly deceiving, as Spain had Germany on the heels for the majority of the contest. The Spaniard tallied 14 shots to Germany’s 4, and could have had several more had Iniesta not wasted so many possessions inside the box.

Overall, the tournament was one of the more enjoyable I can remember. With nearly all of the teams fielding high-quality squads, we didn’t have to suffer through any cakewalks (except when Spain played Russia). Nearly every team came onto the pitch with an attacking mindset, and that mentality yielded many goals and few scoreless draws. In fact, I can only recall two scoreless draws: Romania-France and the Spain-Italy quarterfinal.

Thanks to Turkey, we had late-game drama in every round of the tournament. A few pre-tournament favorites fell a little earlier than expected (Portugal, Netherlands) but in the end, quality was rewarded. Unlike the World Cup, the European Championship has a bit more history with unheralded champions (Greece ’04, Denmark ’92) but this year proved to be the welcome exception.

World Cup 2010 expectations for the Spaniards will now be sky-high, and many are already projecting an Argentina-Spain final. After what I have seen, I could hardly disagree. But success in these tournaments often requires a little bit of luck in addition to skill, and Spain should savor this championship before moving onto dreams of World Cup 2010.