Euro 2012: Spain 2-0 France

There is little to be said about a game where one team was dour and listless and could barely put two passes together until twenty minutes from the end when their dour and defensive-minded coach decided to substitute for some attacking class and then the match became more representative. They still lacked for finishing and you could see their inability to switch from one state of play to the other, from a guarded approach to a more expansive concept in their desperation, but they had chances and they imposed their ability on the ball. They could play football with Spain and yet they chose not to. Here was another match in a long series of matches where the winner was blamed for the negative play of their opponent: Spain are boring.

Spain are boring? Spain dominated the field of play for the first 30 minutes of the game. It was 15 or more minutes before the French even crossed into Iker Casillas´s area. It could have been 3-0 in that span and they were as animated as I have seen them for the better part of a half. They were obviously missing a goal-scorer, and who is to say that an aging David Villa would have been that player, but they were pinging the ball around the pitch, using their width and putting the French on their heels. And yet, they are criticized for their tiki-taka brand of football. ¨They owe us more of a spectacle than this bland, possession style game that never goes anywhere¨, their detractors say. Were you watching the same match I was? Could you even see good football if you saw it?

Philistines. It really is as if they´ve been reaching for that flower at the top of a dung-heap and as they pluck it they realize they´ve lost their sense of smell. They can´t distinguish between the flower and the shit they´ve been mired in. I can see their point. It is a slower build-up and it does take more patience to watch, but this is football not table tennis. When a perfectly regulated counter is sprung, that´s beautiful to watch, but I don´t want to see that 50 times in one game. What do you do when both teams are doing the same thing: waiting for the other team to make their move, waiting for the two or three clear chances you´ll get in a game. That´s the epitomy of boredom to me.

Use your players and get out of their way. My God, Brian Clough did say it best, ¨Players lose you games, not tactics. There's so much crap talked about tactics by people who barely know how to win at dominoes. ¨ Then again, who was Brian Clough, really. Just someone who took a second division side and made them European Champions without the need for Russian petro-dollars.