Saturday, June 28, 2008 Villaflor: Europe re-discovers the beautiful game By Noel Villaflor Footnote
WE’VE seen a Greek tragedy. The French got fried, while Turkey got roasted, courtesy of a German blitzkrieg in extra-time. Spain gored everything that crossed its path.
Shoot me for mixing metaphors, but this has got to be the most exhilarating Euro tournament I have seen in the last 12 years.
Who needs ousted champions Greece and World Cup winners Italy when attacking football has turned nearly every game into a thriller with actual goals scored in regulation time?
There was hardly a dull moment in Austria and Switzerland. That’s what happens when teams figure out that the main objective of football is to score goals and not to cram the penalty area with bodies. Down to the last minute.
It’s about time Europe re-discovers how football must be played. (It’s no secret why the world loves Brazil.) Those who stayed up late in the other side of the world — in Cebu, for instance — are delighted to witness this re-discovery. What good fortune.
I don’t wish to take anything from Greece’s fairytale run in ’04, but winning with 1-0 score lines had to end. Otherwise, that would have led to famine.
Just as many of you are, I am beyond glad at how Euro 2008 has unfolded. Davids slaying Goliaths. Goliaths slaying giants. In the end, only the teams with nerves of steel and the wits that go with it remain.
It would be ideal if finalists Spain and Germany live up to the drama that has defined the games over the last three weeks. So far, all things point to that direction.
The perennial underachievers, Spain’s renaissance is almost coming full circle. Its last finals appearance was in 1984, two decades after it first, and last, won the tournament.
But in Euro 2008, Spain has blown the opposition senseless. Twice it destroyed Russia. World champions Italy, it left in ruins. It remains the only unbeaten team in the tournament and aims to keep it that way at month’s end.
Standing in the Spaniard’s way are three-time Euro champions Germany, an adversary Spanish coach Luis Aragones describes as “a hell of a task.”
This German team, though, appears to be an aberration of its more efficient predecessors.
The back four have been leaking goals and Lehmann isn’t — and will never be — the brick wall that Oliver Kahn was.
What this young team has is the sheer willpower to win and a manager in Joachim Low whose vision of the modern game transcends classical German efficiency.
For the semi-finalists of World Cup 2006, attack is key. It has dumped the traditional 4-4-2 formation in favor of 4-2-3-1, a more attacking variation of 4-5-1.
One problem for the Germans, though, is that Turkey has exposed an inherent weakness in the formation, just as the Russians did to the Dutch, who also used the 4-2-3-1.
That weakness is the gaping area the two defensive midfielders have to cover throughout the game. A shaky defense makes it worse.
Low is expected to make the necessary adjustments against the marauding Spanish who have become masters at creating space that creates goals.
The conquistadors of space, though, aren’t letting their guard down just yet.
