Euro 2008 Final preview

So after games and goals galore it comes down to this game - Germany and Spain, 2 teams who have seemed to have hold their nerve and played some good football over the tournament, I admit the Germans are there through patient play as they were secondary to Turkey in the semi final.

However they did win well against Portugal and they do have flair players in their side such as Ballack, Schweinsteiger and dare I say it Philip Lahm, he has been a revelation scoring the winning goal to get them here. Miroslav Klose is now starting to find the net with a goal in the quarters and the semis but like every good player he just has to keep it going. As stated before Germany were outstanding candidates to progress and possibly win this tournament.

Spain is a strange one, on numerous amounts of occasions we have seen them crack and whimper at Quarter finals or even earlier than that. Head Coach Luis Aragones made a big call in leaving our Real Madrid pair Raul and Guti and came under scrutiny somewhat (well from Madrid press anyway) but I suppose us England fans have seen something of this nature, as in 1998 Glenn Hoddle left out Gascoigne from the squad much to everyone’s surprise but in this case it didn’t work, but for Aragones it has from a ageing pre-madonna striker to 2 young guns hungry and leading the attack. Something that has also surprised me with Spain is that they don’t have natural wingers in their favoured line up.

One angle that they have used to full effect in this competition, well I say it’s an angle more of a player really is David Villa <looks like he is out of the Final Ed.> , the Premiership target limped off in the semis which is a shame because he has played so well to get this far. Torres is yet to score but the way they seemed to cancel the Russians begs the question β€˜can they do it?’ I think with influential players such as Barcelona’s Xavi, Iniesta, of course there’s Fabregas who could get a shout after his impressive display in the semis. The main man for Spain I think is Carlos Puyol; the man is rock with silly hair, a great tackler and a good leader within the back four, as their vice-captain he really commands and demands of the players. I would really like to see him in the elite 11 at the end of the tournament.

As you can tell I am in favour of the Spanish but only because I have a punt on them, quite ironically I was either going to make a punt on either one of the finalists before the tournament, but I followed Spain who have a bit more raw emotion and both teams do have strong defences but I’m going for the Germans to crack this time around.

Spanish win 2-0!

Mark_B17