Is Euro 2008 Boring Yet?

I have to say I was flattered at the optimistic response to my hastily-written and therefore mistake-ridden posting last week ("the agonizing moaning...have gone silent" etc etc.). Written on the back end of Turkey's movie-perfect comeback against the Czechs, it expressed what I had hoped the tournament would mean for attacking football in Europe. Perhaps counter intuitively given yesterday's sonambulent passing contest between Italy and Spain, I think it's safe to say the results over the quarter-finals since then still give much hope.

Let me explain.

I spent this past week vacationing in New York City with the missus which provided a great chance to view a few of the the quarter-finals away from the partisan madness of Toronto, a frenzy of noise that can shamefully skew my perspective on the games especially when it interrupts my tippy-tapping on the old blog. It was therefore in honour of my civic heritage when, at the bar of a near-empty Irish pub near Union Square, I heartily cheered Schweinsteiger's opening goal against Portugal (those damned Dundas-clogging horn-honkers!).

However, as the strike managed to produce only the faint murmurings of a few slurred-speeched barflies over near the back, the football half of my brain took over and Portugal's imminent demise suddenly seemed like a huge loss for the tournament and a blight on my 'attacking football' argument that I worked so...um, that I had written. How could it be good for goals goals goals football when boring, predictable Germany is allowed to progress and Portugal is not?

Well, it can because it is. Let's look at the results.

Turkey, who someone pointed out earlier have only been in the lead for one millisecond since the Precambrian period, went through not for stalwart defending, but for two insane, last-minute, mad-dash attacks of the sort pooh-poohed by those who think '2-nil at half time' is football wrapped in a bow. You tell me how your Italian lock-box would have dealt with the sheer reactionary fear of a team with the passion of Turkey on the brink of elimination?

Then we have Holland versus Russia. On the page this looks like a disaster for the tournament, but as the on-line football brain trust has already pointed out, Russia is the true inheritor of Total Football in Europe. They went to some length to prove it too against the dismal Dutch who, in the attack department, could only manage losing the ball repeatedly to the focused Russian defenders who passed it to their entertaining Russian midfielders, who, well, gave it to Arshavin who scored/set-up goals that were marvelous to watch and near-impossible to defend.

And what can you say about Italy Spain? Italy threw cross after cross to a hapless Luca Toni; Spain passed it about but could not make a convincing foray into space. Two defending teams defending each other into dust. All's I know is, if Russia plays like Russia can play and Spain plays like they did against Italy, Dasvidanya, Reino de España.

Obviously, we could still be in line for a turd of a final, which would be a shame and wouldn't reflect the general spirit of what we've witnessed in Switzerland and Austria these past few weeks. But even if the final was a boring nil-nil affair, it wouldn't matter. Look at the teams which have left Euro 2008: France, Holland, Portugal. The difference between these powerful footballing nations and those who remain, Turkey, Russia, Spain, is that the former lost when they pulled back, when they didn't push, when they sat back and waited until it was too late, while those of the latter attacked like, and when, it truly counted.

Good-bye Greece; hello Russia.