Euro 2008: boys with balls

Thank God for the existence of Iker Casillas. The Spanish keeper, team captain, and Legolas-like wonderboy made the final bearable for me. Casillas made me think back to 2002, when this unusually young goalkeeper was having a brilliant World Cup showing and Germany were doing what they did again this year: making me tear my hair out in helpless rage. Football has a tendency to repeat itself.

One can’t hate Spain, though, I’ve decided. Sure, it’s theoretically possible, but why would one want to?

Even after Spain demolished my boys, the Russians, and proceeded to wipe the floor with my other boys, the Germans (and let’s not forget Spain’s 2006 World Cup defeat of my original home team, Ukraine, which could only have been more embarrassing if the Spanish players pantsed Andriy Shevchenko and proceeded to slap keeper Oleksandr Shovkovsky with his own gloves), I can’t help but be happy for them.

When does Spain, an essentially good team, ever win anything anyway?

One can hate Spain because of Real Madrid, but I choose not to. It’s a conscious decision and I’ve stuck to it ever since my youthful girl-crush on this club gave way to superstar fatigue. One does have to honour youthful girl-crushes in one way or another, it’s like honouring your heritage.

Now, since Ukraine didn’t make it into Euro 2008, I was largely content with rooting for the Russians and the Germans, and watching the parade of legs. Men hate it when women dare to open their mouths about football player legs (forgetting the male fascination with Maria Sharapova), as if it sullies the sport somehow, but I think it’s only natural for a heterosexual woman to have a thing or two to say about the legs.

Good-looking athletes exist in all sporting events, but football combines grace with strength in a largely understated way; it has brilliant, showy moments that one has to wait for as passing builds up to a crescendo. It allows for contemplation. And there’s nothing quite as beautiful as contemplating two evenly matched teams, going at it like angry gods on Olympus.

Speaking of beauty, there is the role that the ball itself plays, the way its trajectory can look so clean and precise when the right set of feet enters the equation, the way the sure ball in the air unconsciously inspires one’s own body to leap into the air as well, knocking over beer bottles and creating, for a moment, an undignified yet wholly genuine symphony of Game and Fans. It’s Tolkien’s eucatastrophe, with ample displays of physical perfection as bonus.

In terms of actual catastrophe, the biggest upset this year was arguably Holland. I have to admit that I didn’t even watch the game, unnerved as I was at the prospect of watching Russia crash and burn in the quarter-final. Instead, I got to watch Russia crash and burn in the semi-final, a slightly more bearable defeat.

In the Holland-Russia match, refinement seemed to have been overcome by power, while the Germany-Spain final had it the other way around. I believe that Holland failed where Spain succeeded because the former just didn’t have that cohesiveness, and that captain.

The electrical storm that disrupted broadcasts of the Germany-Turkey match was symbolic of the heightened emotion surrounding the game. As loath as I am to admit it, Turkey would have probably gone all the way, had they been luckier and perhaps a little bit more confident. There will always be something endearing in the way Germany plays, though. Far too many people are eager to dismiss the Germans as “boring automatons,” overlooking their good teamwork and their refreshing lack of peacock-like posturing.

Germany just didn’t have what it takes. And that’s OK, because at this point, for me, football without heartbreak is like a Friday night without a wardrobe malfunction: wholly unnatural.