Tournament of high drama

With his quick, clever footwork, Luka Modric of Croatia constantly took on and beat opponents in the recently concluded Euro Championships, writes Brian Glanville.

Why, one wondered, did UEFA decide to make Switzerland a co-host of the European Championship finals? True it had worked well enough back in 1954 when the Swiss had played host to a World Cup then sensibly limited to 16 teams. But soccer then was far from the immensely magnetic phenomenon which, for better or worse, it is today. That the little Swiss stadia could take no more than 30 odd thousand fans each didn’t matter. In 2008, when it came to playing host to the E uropean finals, they were absurdly inadequate. Games which in England, Spain or Italy might well have drawn 80,000 or more spectators harboured some 30,000 fewer. Only Austria’s Ernst Happel Stadium could take as many as 55,000.

Meanwhile, the bleak news that UEFA were thinking of swelling the number of Euro finalists next time round to 32 made one pray that the new and voluble President Michel Platini, a Euro winner himself in Paris in 1984, would knock some sense into his organisation.

This was a tournament of high drama, occasional mediocrity, much controversy. How, for instance, did Michael Ballack and Germany get away with his blatant shove on the Portuguese full-back Paulo Ferreira, when he headed that decisive German third goal? But neither referee nor linesman saw anything wrong. That the ruling on offside urgently needs definition we already know too well, after the fiasco of Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s blatantly offside goal against Italy when Christian Panucci prone on the ground behind the goal was ruled to be playing the Dutchman onside.

Could anything have been more ironic than the fact that little Luka Modric of Croatia, soon to join Tottenham Hotspur — lucky them — should miss that first shoot-out penalty against Turkey having been far and away their finest player on the field, an amalgam of sheer skill, great courage and strategic flair? Who said that the playmaker, the midfield general, was a thing of the past? With his quick, clever footwork, Modric constantly took on and beat opponents and then he would use the ball with consummate skill.

In the first-half against Turkey, he it was, from the left, who laid on a goal on a plate for his striker, Ivica Olic, who promptly lashed it against the bar. In rushed Nico Kranjcar, to head the ball over the bar. The image of an outraged Modric, down on his knees and beating the ground, will long remain vivid. And Modric it was, when the veteran reserve Turk ’keeper Rustu belted crazily out of his goal — shades of Greece’s Nikopolidis against Russia — who turned the ball in for Klasnic to score. Quite how Croatia failed to win that game in ordinary time after making so many chances will remain a mystery. But give the Turks great credit. For 90 odd minutes they simply spoiled and hung on.

But in extra time, with Semih on the field as a second striker, it was Turkey who then called the tune and, at least on the basis of the extra period, deserved their equaliser.

Though Patrick Vieira, whom he didn’t give a game, came out in his favour, there is surely no doubt that much of the blame for France’s demise went to their eccentric manager, Raymond Domenech. And let us not forget that in the World Cup, he was at one at daggers drawn with the star of his show, Zinedine Zidane, who didn’t give him a backward glance on the occasion he was substituted: but returned in due course to inspire France to a final which they might have won, had he not so crazily butted Marco Materazzi.

In Spain, there was just no substitute for Zidane and his dazzling invention. Yet, it was baffling to see Domenech — a figure of fun when, after his team’s elimination, he publicly declared his choice at the prospect of marring his partner — deploy in central-midfield two such uninventive players as Claude Makelele and Jeremy Toulalan. A huge burden was placed on the fast and gifted-winger Franck Ribery and it might be argued that France’s and Domenech’s luck ran out when he was injured so early in the game against Italy. But one was also astonished by the fact that the resourceful centre-back Philippe Mexes, who had such a good season for Roma, could not even find a place in the squad.

Using the elderly, vulnerable Lilian Thuram in that role was a hostage to fortune. And it was surprising not to find Arsenal’s lively young left-back, Gael Clichy, among those chosen. As for the choice of the sadly vulnerable centre-back Jean-Alain Boumsong of Lyon — such a figure of fun at Newcastle — in preference to Mexes, words fail one.

How Russia missed the multi-talented Andrei Arshavin from their first two games, which he himself missed through suspension! The complete Total Footballer, you might say, splendidly skilled, quick of foot and of mind, as creative as the best playmakers, yet always a threat to the opposing goal. We had seen how he took the clumsy Rangers’ defence apart in Manchester in the UEFA Cup Final, and when he returned to the Russian attack against Greece, it was he who emphatically, pulled the strings.

But his form surely reached a crescendo with his display against a Dutch team lucky indeed to survive into extra-time. First on the left, where he left his marker for dead and set up the second Russian goal for Dmitri Torbinski then scored the third himself, racing in from the opposite flank and having his shot deflected past an Edwin van der Sar who, for a long while, had kept his team in the game, he ended the match with his eyes tight shut, holding back the tears of joy. That was his 35th cap and despite what might be described as his baby face, he is no chicken: 27 years old in fact. You wonder why he has taken as long as this to bestride European soccer.

The Real Madrid-Ronaldo affair lay like a dark shadow over the competition, as the Spanish champions not only and blatantly tapped up the Portuguese star, but reportedly told him to bring pressure on Manchester United and were undeterred when a furious United reported them to FIFA. Understandably enough: what teeth have FIFA to deal with such squalid situations? Not long ago, Real’s then President insisted his club had no wish to buy David Beckham: then went ahead and did so: with mixed results.

By and large, Real tend to get what and whom they want; Zinedine Zidane and Luis Figo being two salient examples. Still, English club managers seem to walk out when they feel like it, and it’s hard to blame footballers too harshly when they decide to do the same.

Ronaldo, though he may have shown it only occasionally in the Euros, is arguably the best footballer in the world. But he hasn’t behaved like one.