I’ll agree with Portugal vs Netherlands as the best match. As for the worst, this might surprise a few, but I really didn’t enjoy the final. As soon as Spain scored their goal and Italy had to take an injured player off, I thought the result was a foregone conclusion. They then scored three more, while Italy had to play most of the second half with ten men because someone got injured after all their substitutions had been used up. Terribly bad luck for them. I’m not saying they would have won otherwise, but they would have made it an interesting game at least, I think.
There are lots of candidates for player of the tournament. It’s hard to pick a Spanish one because they’re all so good. Jordi Alba was probably their one “revelation”, and sure enough, Barcelona signed him up mid-tournament. Mario Balotelli really impressed me, as did Zlatan Ibrahimovic, funnily enough. He was Sweden’s best player in at least two of their three matches and scored the goal of the tournament.
I’m reluctant to give the whole tournament a mark out of ten right now because I’m feeling disappointed by the final. The semi-finals weren’t that interesting either. Up to that point, however, I had thoroughly enjoyed it.
