EURO 2008

..has been great. Aside from the exhilarating football I've also enjoyed seeing pundits careen from one wretched nostrum to another. Germany were lionized, then Portugal, then Spain, then Holland, then Russia, then Turkey, then Spain again. Perhaps the old order is crumbling..we'll see.
The most amusing failed punditry has been with respect to coaches. Choose the genius - Rehagel, Scolari, Hiddink.
I guess if I had to make up stuff for a living I'd do the same thing but it gets a bit much. Going into the Russia-Spain match, the Beeb has a pundit that claimed that the key matchup was Hiddink versus Aragones. When will sports journalists recognize the obvious? The players determine the result. The coaches set the table but the meal is all the guys between the lines.
I like Hiddink. I like him because he gets his teams to buy into attractive soccer. But there are limits. Spain won because they have better players not because Aragones "out-thought" Hiddink.
The final is a crapshoot. Spain don't have better players than Germany (or vice versa); it could come down to that persistent German virtue - indomitability; but I'd like to see Spain win.
Finally, we've had the predictable nonsense about Arshavin. A genius against Holland who "disappeared" against Spain. No. Just the probabilities. It's very hard for even the most talented player to put together 3 stellar outings in a row. He was neither as great against Sweden and Holland nor as poor against Spain as the "experts" said. In the former everyone noted the times he beat his man but not when he didn't - because you just need to "come off" 2-3 times as an attacking player to create good chances and people forget the failures. What marks a very good player - as Arshavin surely is - is that they keep trying to make plays. Several times Arshavin almost pulled off a move or a pass but not quite: them's the breaks. Ultimately, Russia just lacked the all-round skill; without Arshavin pulling rabbits out of his hat they were pretty much out of tricks - but they made for a fine contest.