Now that its all over, I thought I would just start some discussion on it...see how some people saw it.

Overall I thought it was a fantastic tournament, and much better than the last. For once it was interesting to see a team win with a positive style of football. We all now Greece did it last time doing the complete opposite, and in a general sense you feel that even big teams these days have become to pragmatic, thinking that winning is the ultimate goal...which I guess it is.

I thought Spain were really good throughout, although the Dutch maybe produced the performances of the tournament. Their dismantling of the Italians and the French were amazing, and makes the Russian's display all the more amazing.

It was all shown that sometimes you have to be able to drop the older names. This is strange for someone of my age (28), because the players I have followed for most of their careers are now getting to end of those careers, and its easy to sometimes hark back to the good days. You can forget to take of those rose-tinted glasses and actually see their performances for what they are now. Aragones was brave enough to do it for Spain by dropping Raul, and look at the results. To some extent Van Basten did the same by dropping Seedorf. Where I'm going with this is that 2 powerhouses of the sport didn't do the same. France in particular were a national team in desperate need of cutting ties with the old guard. It was almost sad seeing some of their greats reduced to being run ragged by Italy. But Domenech brought it on himself. Can you imagine what they could have done with the likes of Gael Clichy and Bacary Sagna marauding down the wings rather than Abidal and Sagnol...although Abidal isn't old, just very crap! And Makelele should have been replaced with Flamini some time ago, I would imagine Mathieu would have brought some much needed energy to a midfield that looked tired and bored most of the time.

Anyway, some final thoughts:

Player of the Tournament: Ballack - although the Germans didn't win it, I think they would never have got that far without Ballack carrying them most of the way.

Young Player of the Tournament: - Has to be Fabregas for me, everytime he was chucked out there he changed the game and showed what a good player he is, and his poise for taking that winning penalty against Italy was admirable. It can't have been easy for such a young player who has never taken a competitive penalty before.

Game of the Tournament: Holland v Russia - When you consider how awesome the Dutch had been, it was astounding to see the Russians toy with them. A large part of this was due to the Dutch not really showing up, but a large part of that has to Hiddink's tactics.

Biggest Disappointment: Fake Ronaldo - for all the hype that surrounded him, and the Portuguese team as a whole, he never came close to what he is capable of.

Surprise of the Tournament: - The Turkish refusal to give up...I mean seriously how many times were they going to do it. I guess the bigger surprise was that the Germans then did it to them.

Biggest let down after building so much hype: Shared between David Villa and Andrei Arshavin - each had to 2 great matches, and then pratically disappeared. Was Arshavin even on the pitch against the Spanish?!?

Biggest Laugh: Petr Cech dropping that Turkish cross...best keeper in the world my ar*e!