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A festival of inventive, attacking football capped by towering individual performances or a dour exercise in no-risk defending. Just how will Euro 2008 pan out?
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Can Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo join the greats with a tournament-defining display to match the brilliance of Michel Platini in France’s 1984 triumph or will Germany’s well-drilled back four provide the abiding memory?
Will there be titanic encounters such as France’s 3-2 semi-final victory over Portugal 24 years ago or Spain’s last-gasp 4-3 success over Yugoslavia in 2000, or will teams score once and then sit back and defend?
There is certainly enough talent on show to produce a memorable occasion if only it is not stifled by coaches too scared to take a risk.
Ronaldo is the name on everybody’s lips as he seeks to cap a monumental year when his goals and bewitching skills helped Manchester United to Champions and Premier League titles.
Four years ago, he and his Portugal team mates found that talent alone was not enough as they lost twice to Greece on home soil, including the final.
Greece’s wily German coach Otto Rehhagel knew that opponents were too paralysed by the fear of failure to break out of their cautious straitjackets and consequently recognised that one goal would almost always be enough.
Other “outsiders” will have taken note and will no doubt have been working on their defensive systems, which places extra onus on the big guns to find a way of ensuring their so-called superior talent can do some damage.
Spain, desperate to end their 44-year title drought, must open the supply routes to Fernando Torres.
A season in the English Premier League with Liverpool has honed the striker’s talents but it is the midfield who must be allowed to take risks if they are to avoid yet another early departure.
Fearless youth could be the key for France, who in 20-year-old striker Karim Benzema could have found the player to rediscover their ‘joie de vivre’.
All the leading sides have players with the ability to turn a game, but the coaches also bear the responsibility of providing a framework to allow their teams to attack.
Platini, now president of UEFA, told a news conference on Friday: “The party is about to start. There will be a lot of laughing, a lot of crying, there will be pain and joy and at the end there will be one winner — that’s the best team.”
He would be too modest to mention it, but how the former midfielder must be crying out for someone to match his remarkable efforts when he scored nine goals in five games in France’s 1984 triumph in a tournament that ranks with the World Cups of the 1970s among football’s classics.
Since then, the odd game apart, the European championship has too often witnessed cagey, unadventurous football.
The low point came in 1996 when there were an average of just two goals per game and penalty shootouts were needed to decide four of the six knockout matches before the final.
Along with one victorious nation, Platini clearly hopes that Euro 2008 will offer a tournament far removed from the one hosted by England 12 years ago.
“I hope that football will be
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