EURO 2012: Tournament of Broken Stereotypes

Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine is over. For the first time in history the reigning kings successfully defended their title, winning 3 major tournaments in a row. As statistics suggests, in the last 6 years we have seen the best ever national team of all generations. Congratulations to Spain!

As expected, there have been lots of bright moments. Recalling them is the only pleasure left after the cup was handed in to Iker Casillas. So let’s see what this European Championship could teach us.

First of all, each and every European Championship assumes maximum of 7 teams, which historically deserve to be called main favorites. These nations are England, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.

It is not only their reputation that makes us admire their play. Each of these countries has developed its own vision of football, delivering the same tactics at all tournaments time and again. Managers and footballers come and go, but the main characteristics of these national football teams are always there. And these characteristics make each football fan admire this or that team and remain loyal for the rest of the time.

But football development in major footballing countries shows some new trends after being more or less static for a long time. These trends have already been noticed at the World Cup in South Africa. In 2014 we will see even more changes, but before we had to see the general rehearsal. Let’s look at the stereotypes about some of these countries and compare them to the reality we saw at Euro 2012.

For more than 40 years Netherlands has been the country to produce the most beautiful football in Europe. They have been famous for their technical abilities and quick play. Attacks bring goals, so this is what the main force has always been focused on. They received a nickname of Flying Dutchmen and it has always been a tragic occasion every time the Dutch team was beaten. As Belgians love to say, all teams come to win trophies, the Dutch one comes to teach others play. Bert van Marwijk, now the former coach of the Netherlands national football team, was not satisfied with the historical achievements, where golden awards were missing. He decided to build a team where 7 players have defensive assignments. This made the Dutch team a bit of unrecognizable at the last World Cup, but they were very close to win the trophy. This time everything went much worse. The Dutch lost all of their 3 matches at the group stage for the first time in history, thus deserving longer holidays. Most of their fans could forgive bad results, but a Dutchman can never forgive a boring defensive play.

The opposite situation has been present in the Italian camp. Squadra Azzurra is impossible to imagine with a weak defense. Clean sheet is as respectable in Italy as scoring a goal. A typical saying, describing the Italian football philosophy, was pronounced by one of former Italian coaches, who suggested that it is better to lose points playing 0-0 than win 4-3. Italians don’t attack much and make sure they score in one of their few counter attacks. On the 24^th of June in Kiev we saw an Italian team, making 35 attempts with 20 of them coming on target and still not scoring a single time. Cesare Prandelli promised to change the Italian football style and make the world forget the word Catenaccio. He delivered it. Italy has been the most attacking team at the tournament. Everybody was surprised to see such an Italian team, which reached the final and didn’t leave a word for grumpy fans to say. Even more, they conceded 4(!) goals in the final. It is not a usual thing to happen in case of Italy.

Once an English player said that football is a simple game, where 22 players participate and Germany wins in the end. By these times Germany used to win a trophy after another thanks to their fantastic will, strength and power. They never showed anything supreme; just they knew how to get the result in important matches. There haven’t been many technically perfect players in the German national team. The best forwards were cynically good in using their chances to score. In the last second of any match German players were determined to score as much as they were in the beginning, no matter what the score was. They were also the famous for getting red cards quite often, which didn’t really harm the results shown by disciplined German players. At Euro 2012 Germany received 4 yellow cards in 5 matches! The players in the German team are enormously well-prepared technically. They are quick; they show admirable football and… lose when it matters. It has been the fourth tournament in a row, when they stop at the point very close to their dream. Germans didn’t have a chance to participate in after-match penalties, but it seems that this new Germany can even lose such series, if they get to it.  

The other main shock was brought by Roy Hodgson’s England. The English team has always been an emotional loss for a tournament, every time they left it. Strong fitness, long crosses, dangerous set pieces and headers have been a part of English game at Euro 2012, but the new mode of blocking their own goal with almost all of the team and during the whole match has been something new to discover for dedicated English fans. The historical England has made an impression of a proud, spiritually strong team. Today the way their fans sing “God Save the Queen” seems to be the only thing we recognize from a stereotypical English national football team. England left the tournament after penalty shoot outs, but this time there were not many fans blaming the unfairness of such an after-match ritual. 

Finally, the crowned former and current European Champions have shown us the strangest thing football has ever seen – football without a forward. When football was just invented, there were a goalkeeper and 10 forwards in each team, whilst current tyrants got rid of this football category. This made them show us what the ultimate football pragmatism looks like. Spain has always had things under control during this tournament, but dissimilar to their previous versions, this team didn’t care about shooting. Passing was the key: the opponent would sooner or later get nervous. And only in the last match of the tournament the title holders proved the thirsty world why Spanish team is called La Roja Furia. If not that performance, the growing army of Spain’s grumpy antagonists would definitely have grounds for critics.  

Other than these trends, there is a detail I would like to pay attention to after I watched all of the matches at this tournament. Where were the final attacks to save the game? And, consequently, where were the late decisive goals? There have been only two decisive goals scored in the dying minutes. Those were the ones scored in matches between Portugal and Denmark, as well as Spain and Croatia.