Spain are European Champions

The Euro 2008 ended yesterday the 29 of June 2008 and Spain are the European champions.Striker Fernando Torres out-muscled Germany's Philipp Lahm in the 33 minute of play to provide the lone score of the game.The Spanish team add another major trophy to their collection for the first time since 1964.They ended up with the best attack in the competition(12 goals scored) and they did not concede a goal from the knockout stage of the competition.David Villa ended up with the golden boats for best striker in the competition with 4 goals.The Spanish team played an attractive brand of soccer and their triumph here will be hail as a victory for the beautiful game of soccer.They were very entertaining and their Iberian build up style of play from the defence all the way to the front line is just beautiful to watch.Midfield play was the key to the team and will continue to be the strength of the team.Their starting four midfielders are excellent ball handlers and their isn't any drop off in play quality when the team made midfield substitutions(strength in depth).Once the Spanish team beat Italy in the quarter-final penalty shoot-out, you had the feeling that the team has finally come of age and nothing was going to stop them this time around.After being branded as perennial underachievers for such a long time, Spain has now found the winning formula and now join Germany,Italy and France as European Nations to be reckoned with come any major competition.The question on everybody's lips now is which competition is harder to win,the world cup or the Euro?The European teams(who else)claim that the Euro is a more difficult competition to win and that there are no minors(whipping boys) in the European championship.French soccer superstar Thierry Henry claimed that the European championship that the French won back in 2000 was more difficult than the 1998 World cup that they had won just two years earlier.Current Argentina soccer coach Alfio Basile recently said that he has been watching the current Euro and was not impressed at all.The South American nations have won a total of 9 world cups,Brazil 5,Argentina 2 and Uruguay 2.The Europeans have won a total of 9 world cups,Italy4,Germany 3,France 1 and England 1.So three teams from South America and four Europeans nations for a total of 7 teams have split the world cup victories amongst themselves.The number of victories for each continent is split equally in half.9 for the Europeans and 9 for the South Americans.In the history of the European nations cup a total of nine teams have split the spoils,Germany 3,France 2,Spain2,Italy 1,Russia 1,Czech Republic 1,Holland 1,Denmark 1,Greek 1.So a total of 9 different teams have won the 13 Euros that have been staged since 1960.For the World cup a total of 7 teams have won the world cup that has been staged since 1930,18 in total.So if winning that Euro is much tougher how come countries like Greece,Spain,Denmark and the Czech Republic(nations that have won the Euro) have not won the World cup?The other side of the argument will be that a country like England that won the World cup back in 1966 has not been able to win the Euro.In their current formats teams need to play a total of 7 games to win the world cup while for the Euro you need only six games.The European championship now features only 16 teams as oppose to the world cup that features 32.So it might be tougher to get out of the group stages in the Euro than in the world cup because the Euro is already narrowed down to 16 teams.Part of the reason that more teams have won the Euro than the world cup is that the European teams are playing against each other and they are pretty familiar with each other's style of play.That is why a team like Greece in 2004 and Denmark in 1992 can spring a surprise and win the competition.When European teams get to the world cup they see a different brand of football.The South American teams do not play as structured a game as the Europeans.You see more individual play in the South Americans way of playing.Traditionally in world cups the South Americans give the European teams quite a few problems because they are much faster.The exception here will be the Italians,they adapt well during the world cup and can take on the South American teams much easily.I have not mentioned teams from Africa,North America,Asia and Australia because so far none of these teams has come closed to lifting the world cup trophy.Apart from Mexico(which actually plays like a Latino team)the rest of the world still has a lot of work to do to be considered as world cup threats.European nations always point to the Italians(4 times world champions and 1 time European champion)as a clear example of how easy it is for a European team to win the world cup than the European nations cup.My answer to this is let the likes of Greece,Czech Republic,Spain,Denmark go win a world cup.The world cup has to be the more gruelling competition.A total of 32 teams(including of cause all the European qualifiers)playing for one trophy over a month period.They are going to be minors in the competition,but which countries do you classify as minors now are days.Ask Argentina in World cup 1990(against Cameroon)and France in World cup 2002(against Senegal)how it feels like to play against so called "minors".Now that Spain has found their winning touch lets see how they perform come South Africa 2010.