EURO 2008, DAY 19: The FINAL: EURO TWO THOUSAND AND HATE (ESPANA … 1 Deutschland … 0, Lawrenson, Motson, Lineker, Hansen and Shearer are scum)

I’ve just heard, for the last three hours and more, that Germany are a defensive disaster at this European Championships. We’ve just been told that “Spain outclassed them in every football department” in tonight’s final. How then did Spain only win 1-0?

We’ve just been told that there has been a power-shift in World football because “Germany haven’t really done anything since EURO 96″. No, nothing except finishing second and third at successive World Cups and then reaching the final of this summer’s tournament. If that’s them with a crap team what will they do when they get a few more decent players through the ranks??!!

I’ve just been told that Lineker, Hansen, Motson and co have “always seen Spain as the great biennial under-achievers coz they haven’t won anything for 44 years”. That’s only two years more than England and that record is now at an end. Spain won something in 2008. England haven’t won anything since 1966.

I’ve just been informed that “Michael Ballack’s record in finals is becoming embarrassing”. Yes, I’m sure he’d much rather never have played in two World Cup semi-finals, two Champions League finals and a European Championship final. I’m sure he’d rather be like every English player of the last five decades and simply hope his club side can sign enough foreigners to get him to the odd club final … coz he’ll NEVER do anything with his country. Not qualifying for a summer tournament at all is much less embarrassing than losing the final.

I’ve also just been informed that “Spain played the beautiful game tonight” and Germany were awful to watch: Spain had one man up front for the entire game - Germany put on four strikers by the end. Who was trying to play the “attacking football”?

I’ve just had to listen to Mark Lawrenson have a wee chuckle at the state of Italian football by saying that providing the referee for tonight’s final was “the only way Italy were ever going to make the final”. At least Italy CAN provide the referees. England cannot even manage that much. I heard Lawrenson himself (Irish my ARSE!) last week decry the decision to send home Howard Webb, the FA’s best representative at the tournament, before the knock-out stages. So Lawrenson clearly cares about the pride a country can glean from its referees being awarded top matches - yet he mocks the Italians for winning this accolade this summer. Jack Taylor is the last English referee to get a major international final - that was in 1974 … THIRTY FOUR YEARS AGO! Italy have reached the final of the European championships on two seperate occassions and the World Cup final six times - this is a major factor in their referees not having twice as many honours. England have reached one World Cup final and yet still their refs get no major finals.

Hugh Dallas was fourth official at the 2002 World Cup final but no-one in Scotland beleives our national team or our referees have any right to anything if we aren’t good enough. We’re a nation of ony 5 million but Uruguay and Croatia are smaller and that hasn’t stopped them excelling on the world stage. In Scotland we don’t look for excuses and we certainly mock no other fitbaw nation - except England. This latter behaviour is wrong and I’ve always been against it but it’s so easy to understand why we indulge in mistaken England-bashing when ye listen to the kind of bigoted, twisted, hypocritical and hyesterical venom which has been poured into our Ears over the last three weeks.

From a footbaling point fo view this has been a marvellous tournament. But for the first time in my life the commentaries and the punditry have actually ruined it for me. Spain were WONDERFUL this summer. The word “deserve” should be banned from sporting assesments but no-one can argue that Spain were thoroughly smashing to watch in June 2008 … all great teams, all winning teams are.

Except, it would seem, Germany.

Spain began time-wasting and hitting on the break after less than an hour of tonight’s game. This is fair enough. I have no issue with that. Yet we’ve just been told they were the only teanm trying to play football in this game. Read the rest of my Diary on this summer’s tourney. It’s full of the same stuff. I have been unable to stop assessing the reasons behind the tone of English-based commentaries. There can be no question now it’s just total xenophobia. It’s disgusting. And it’s being peddled by the BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION. Dumbing-down is disturbing enough but preaching ignorance and hatred in the face of all contrary evidence is so sinister it makes my stomach churn.

John “England may well have won Euro 2004 if Wayne Rooney hadn’t got injured” Motson is welcome to his retirement. It’s only about 25 years too late. When the German fans gave an impromptu rendition of their national anthem tonight he quipped that “It wasn’t quite uber alles on the pitch”. A bitter enough remark in its own right but it went beyond mere sniydenyness in its depths of ignorace: The verse of the German national anthem including the infamous “Deutschland, Deutschland Uber alles” line had been dropped and illegal ever since the end of the Third Reich. Basically, Motson was referring to the Nazis.

We now know who the real Nazis are.

Hansen at half-time: “If I was Germany I’d take the 1-0 defeat and go home now”. So he’s a quitter then, is Hansen? No - a man with his record in European club competitions is clearly no quitter. But he obviously has no moral integrity left. The ratings war demands he slates Germany and praise Spain - that’s what the 4-4-2 Soccer am Tim Lovejoy generation want him to do. So he sells his own personality and inside knowledge in an effort to pander to the LCD.

John Motson sounded like he had only just seen Iniesta tonight, for the first time. Barcelona and Spain are not big enough soccer concerns for Motty to take an interest in one of the world’s greatest midfielders.

But his genuine ignorance was nothing compared to the wilfull ignorace which has smeared this wonderful footbaling fiesta whenever ITV or the BBC have been forced to face up to German footballing might once again. The jibes and the put-downs all come from a pro-English POV so England HAVE to be brought into the argument. I’ll say this for the last time: If Germany are so shite, why do they keep reaching the quarters, semis and finals of every tournament ever? If England can’t even qualify, where do they get the right to sneer at German success??

England - one major final. Germany - THIRTEEN MAJOR FINALS. End of.

And Germany have played all six of their European Championship finals against teams in red jserseys. USSR, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Denmark, Czech Republic and now Spain. Tonight’s match was a victory for Deutschland anyway as both sides sported Adidas stips. The Three Stripes of Adi Dassler won out in the end (wonder if they’ll buy that at the bookies) and it was smashing to see both sides in their traditional home outfits.

Enrique Inglesias may have been a less-than-neutral choice for the pre-match cabaret and when I saw one of the femnale dancers in the Spain strip was black I thought she was meant to prepresent Marcos Senna and that there would be a peroxide blonde and a short-permned babe in the Germany dance troupe. But no - it was all just deliciously tacky, like the horrific closing ceremony.

But when the cameras closed in on the teams lined up in the tunnel, it was glamour and quality all the way. Great to see Spain in a major final - great to see Germany playing someone they haven’t played before in a major final. Great to see a force re-emerging, an Iberian giant re-awakening and I’ll watch with interest to see how Spain do at the next World Cup - Germany 2010.

Oh yes. You heard it here first. Germany 2010. Motson was tonight just cottoning on to what FatEck.co.uk told you two years ago. South Africa will NEVER host a World Cup.

Michael Ballack is the man in the strongest position to dispute the continual accussations of “Lucky, lucky Germany” thrown their way (And weren’t those German fans, pre-match, all agreeing that their country was lucky, just a lesson in modesty … or were all the ones offering the BBC reporter a more rational explanation just edited out?): He wore two different number 13 shirts tonight, either side of his eye being hacked out its socket and, having been suspended from the 2002 World Cup final - a rule withdrawn from this summer’s tournament - and watdched his midfield side-kick Torsten Frings banned by dubious video evidence from the 2006 World Cup semi-final thanks to Italian TV and then see Italy win that semi with goals in the last minute of an extra time Germany would have won with Frings in the mix, he was probably thinking he was gonnae be injured out of the 2008 decider.

But nah - he just lost again. Lucky, Lucky Germans.

Marcena’s disembowling of Klose and Silva’s head-butt on Podolski were both replayed only once by the UEFA broadcasting director. It’s okay to promote the rapist-pandering subjugation of women by continual close-ups of any female with an ample cleavage but GOD FORBID we should ever discover some footballers can be a bit sneaky during a game of soccer!!!

The game was very like the 2002 World Cup final. Everyone expected Germany to lose heavily but Germany, through athleticism, quick-thinking, tactical astuteness and sheer fucking Nietzchian WILL TO POWER, refuse to be anyone’s victim. Those German players were dead on their feet for the last half hour yet they dominated possession for the entire second half. Trust me. Watch it again without the commentary - Germany had most of the ball for most of the game.

Spain were great though. Aragones got his tactics spot-on again. And the BBC’s ranting and raving about “why’s he taking off Torres” was a complete misfire in terms of promoting a pro-Premiership angle. (You’ll notice the substitution of Fabregas was almost hushed up as they knew EXACTLY why he was going off): Torres has been subbed in every game this summer because THE BOY HAS WORKED HIS FUCKING SOCKS OFF, LEADING THE LINE AGAINST TOP CLASS INTERNATIONAL OPPOSITION AT A TOP-END INTERNATIONAL TOURNAMENT. He’s bloody knackered because he’s so bloody GOOD!!! Tell yer public that, Motson - for once ye’ll actually be hitting the truth AND bumming up a Premiership player. But no - all we got was “he’s hardly scored”. Fucking hell. They actually tie themselves in knots, the pundits, with their own attempts to make things what they are not.

Honesty would actually boost yer ratings by MORE. Germany are fantastically tough and durable opponents and Torres got a goal out of them by being more persistent than even a German. Fucking hell - the boy’s just won Spain the European Championships and all we’re getting down the microphones is “He cannae score thid summer - oh, he’s scored - oh, why is he going off??”. Aragones hasn’t made ONE BAD substitution in this entre tournament. And where are Raul’s supporters now? He might be a racist auld fuck, the Septegenarian Spain gaffer, but he certainly knows fitbaw and he sure knows the Germans: Story for you:

Louis Aragones scored for Athletico Madrid in extra time during the 1974 European Cup final in the Heysel. Athletico led until the 120th minute when, with the LAST KICK OF THE GAME, Bayern’s centre-half, Georges Schwarzenbeck unleashed a forty-yard daisy-cutter which popped into the bottom corner. Bayern won the replay 4-0. Aragones knew this game was NEVER over til the fat lady sung. He had to wait til he was seventy years old and survive a nervous break-down, a PR-breakdown and a pro-Raul hate campaign but - finally - auld Luis has got his revenge for Brussels 1974.

The auld Pearl Harbour film “Tora! Tora! Tora!” was on STV today. It made me think of Herbert Zimmerman’s commentary on the 1954 World Cup final - “Tor! Tor! Tor!”. But tonight it was about TORres and Spain - well done to them. Like Holland, Russia and Croatia they have been beautiful to watch this summer. Germany, like Turkey, have been thrilling for their durablity and for the football they played in that quarter-final rampeezler against Portugal.

Iniesta, Senna, Puyol, Villa, Torres, Xavi, Silva and Ramos were all amazing for Spain: A legendary side - Spain’s best ever. Arshavin was briefly sensational, Yuri Zhirkov different class. Ballack had his classy moments but Germany are all about sharing the work. No-one else lasted long enough to be truly counted among the great players of the tournament but Holland, Russia and Spain scored some of the most amazing team goals I’ve ever seen - Holland’s second against Italy just nicks it for best of the tourney. Germany’s opener against Portugal was a wonderous goal but their semi-final winner against Turkey is the most under-appreciated moment of skill, bravery and spirit in this entire tournament. The quarter-final between Turkey and Croatia, as well as Turkeys’ group win over the Czech Republic provided an old anorak like me with that rarest of things - two occurrences which I had never, ever witnessed before in international football. Genuinely stunning moments are rare when ye watch as much fitbaw as I do, as we do.

The stadia were gob-smackingly lovely to the eye and, in my soul, the real star of EURO 2008 was the Ernst Happel stadion in Vienna. It was a wonderous back-drop for any match, the inverted-wedding cake style of its three tiers brought about by the extension of the front rows of seats down to pitch level. Tonight, as the cameras caught the pillared executive boxes at the rear and the Oles rang out around the front of the circular pit, I realised that the mountainous colloseum look which so reflected the Alpine theme of this tournament had transformed into that of a BULL RING.

The “Blood and Gold” of Spain has finally triumphed beyond all doubt. A divided country united in football triumph. The Matadors have us out of our seats. A veronica, a coup de grace, and a trophy for the crowd to lap up. But don’t let ANYONE tell you the Germans have been killed off. And don’t ever let the bastards who broadcast these games suck the soul from our sport. This summer you had to ignore your ears and believe what your eyes were telling you: Your team doesn’t have to be there for a tournament to be utterly brilliant. If England are ALWAYS there - even when they don’t qualify - then they are also NEVER there. Their ignorance is their loss and they don’t even reflect the views of a the genuine England football fan who, like every other punter across the continent, knows true quality when he/she sees it. And EURO 2008 was TRUE quality.

EURO 2008 Microphone League Final standings:

Champion&Pleat: 20/30 (Winners. Everyone else is relegated, and forced into administration)

Tyldseley&Pleat: 13/50

Whatshisface Wilson&Peacok: 4/10

Whatshisface Wilson&Bright: 7/20

Motson&Bright: 3/10

Drury&Beglin: 12/50

Mowbray&Lawrenson: 2/10

Pearce&Lawrenson: 2/30

Whatshisface Wilson&Lawrenson: 0/10

Motson&Lawrenson: -20/50 (yup - that’s “MINUS TWENTY out of fifty”)

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Published:
06.29.08 / 10pm
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