EURO 2008 final:  Germany vs Spain

44 years of drought came to an end on Sunday night for Spain after they beat Germany 1-0 in the EURO 2008 final. Spain won their last major tournament title 44 years ago, beating the Soviet Union.

On Sunday, two different styles met. German efficiency against playful Spaniards.  Both teams started rather cautiously, but the Germans were dominating the first fifteen minutes of the match. Then Spain slowly opened up their game and took over.

With David Villa being out with an injury, all eyes and hopes were on Fernando Torres and he delivered. In the 29th minute he caught a pass from Xavi, outran Lahm and flipped the ball over Lehmann into the net. Spain took a 1-0 lead and never looked back.

The second half saw Germany’s coach Joachim Loew making a couple of player changes. Lahm was replaced with Jansen, Kevin Kuranyi came for Hitzlspenger and finally Gomez for Klose. Despite all of these changes Spain was firmly in control of the match and created a couple of good scoring chances.

Germany continued to struggle till the end and so did their captain Ballack. He had a few good moments but just like the oldest man on the field, goalie Lehmann, he didn’t live up to his expectations.

Spain won their second European championship, Xavi Hernandez was named the best player of the tournament and David Villa is the EURO 2008 top scorer with four goals.

Spain played creative soccer, winning all of their matches, showing that you can play an attractive game and go all the way to the top.

Line up

Spain: Iker Casillas, Sergio Ramos, Carles Puyol, Carlos Marchena, Joan Capdevila, Xavi Hernandez, David Silva (Santi Cazorla, 66), Marcos Senna, Andres Iniesta, Cesc Fabregas (Xabi Alonso, 63), Fernando Torres (Dani Guiza, 78)

Germany: Jens Lehmann, Christoph Metzelder, Per Mertesacker, Philipp Lahm (Marcell Jansen, 46), Arne Friedrich, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Thomas Hitzlsperger (Kevin Kuranyi, 58), Torsten Frings, Michael Ballack, Lukas Podolski, Miroslav Klose (Mario Gomez, 79)