Euro 2012: A one of a kind tournament

No bad match ups. That’s the beauty of the UEFA European Football Championships, with a very small asterisk attached.

Aesthetic standards may well be lowered on Friday when the 2012 tournament kicks off with what might not be a game-for-the-ages between Poland and Greece — that’s what happens when you give host countries that don’t really deserve to be there an automatic berth, and then you go from one host to two.

But otherwise the Euros are nearly perfect. The 16-team field is small enough to eliminate all non-hosting teams that don’t make the grade, and the depth of talent on the continent is such that merely qualifying is remarkably difficult.

The World Cup may have true global reach, but the fact is that not all football-playing regions of the planet are created equally. With inclusiveness come no-hopers, a handful of minnows that always make the field, and very, very rarely exceed even the most modest of expectations.

At the Euros, the odd small fish that gets in has necessarily beaten a number of big fish somewhere along the line — and as was the case with champions Greece in 2004, can make a run.

Those plucky underdogs and surprises take their place among a list of countries that invariably includes nearly everyone you’d ever want to see.

There’s no Brazil, no Argentina, no African teams — and let’s give a modest shout out to the Americans, and to the passionately-supported side from South Korea, who always add to the World Cup fun.

But really, who do you want to watch play this game? Italy and England. Germany and Spain. The Netherlands. Portugal. France.

They’re all here.

And so are their supporters, en masse. For atmosphere, the relatively short distances and easy transportation links give the Euros the feel of a month-long local derby. Tickets are obviously scarce, but the travelling bands will still be out in force, defying the air of economic gloom that now hangs over the continent and shows no signs of abating

Four years ago in Austria and Switzerland (another double host, and in the case of the former, another side that didn’t really belong), Spain finally shook off its reputation as under-achievers with a brilliant victory. They haven’t looked back since, poised now to complete an unprecedented Euro-World Cup-Euro treble with much the same cast.

But there are a whole lot of people who view that as less than a sure thing, especially with David Villa and Carles Puyol sidelined by injury. Playing at that high level is near impossible to maintain over such a long haul — as Barcelona, with the core of the Spain team in its line-up, found out at the end of this season. In the lead-in to the tournament, the Spanish don’t seem to have been firing on all cylinders, though any side that runs through Xavi and Andres Iniesta will be a very tough out.

The most popular choice to knock off the champions is Germany, which is of course organized, well-coached and continues to produce wave after wave of young talent, but history tells us that the Euros don’t always go by the book.

The Dutch were brilliant in South Africa until that heartbreaking, cynical performance in the final, and it would be foolish to count them out here.

The Italians are surely distracted by match-fixing scandals back home (including police visits to their training camp), though that is the exact same scenario in which they won a World Cup in 2006. The England campaign seems a shambles, but stranger things (Greece in 2004 and Denmark in 1992) have happened. And what if Laurent Blanc has finally rid the French team of its crazy/selfish/self-destructive tendencies? The talent is certainly there.

So enjoy it, and enjoy it while you can. Four years hence, Euro 2016 will take place in France, which played a perfect World Cup host back in 1998. But the field then will be expanded to 24 teams — ah, greed — and though those next eight won’t be slouches, some of the best-of-the-best aspect that has made the Euros a sure-thing will inevitably be lost.

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