Last night Spain were deserving winners of the EURO 2008 tournament. Theys howed up to play in the final. Germany did not.

I guess it was a good game, but I was too disappointed by my own mismanagement of my fantasy team to really revel in the joy of the Spaniards. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy for them, but I was dearly unhappy I squandered my bragging rights by playing fast and loose with my fantasy team. I also had banked on Germany at least participating in the game, as opposed to getting played off the pitch by a tactically superior and hungrier Spanish side.

So it goes.

Anyway, a great tournament, for a few reasons:

– Lots of goals

– Perennial underachievers Spain won. Finally. After so many tournament just-misses, bitter recriminations and hand-wringing they can soak soak soak up some glory.

– After a weak performance to follow up their weak qualifying campaign Italy shitcanned the useless Roberto Donadoni and replaced him with the masterful Marcello Lippi behind the bench. I read a quote shortly after Italy bounced out in which he said “Forse, hanno bisogno ancora di me,” which loosely means “maybe they still need me.” This would be hubris of the first degree if it weren’t so patently obvious that they do. Need him. Also Totti and Nesta may come back now that they’ve sacked Donadoni.

– Andrei Arshavin is an awesome football player, and now we all know.

– Turkey. The team made it to the semi’s having led for only 4 minutes all tournament (!) How’d they manage that? Last-gasp comeback after last-gasp comeback. In fact, against Germany they were finally hoist by their own petard when Germany sealed passage to the final via an injury time Philip Lahm strike. Overall, every game Turkey played in had an astonishing finish.

Bad things about EURO 2008

– I came in third in my fantasy league. : (