Spain cast aside millstone

By Simon Baskett

VIENNA (Reuters) - "Football was the winner" is one of the most over-worn cliches in the game but it happened to be true about Spain's victory in Euro 2008.

The connoisseurs will be able to sit back in years to come and simply say that the best team won what was one of the most entertaining and aesthetically pleasing football tournaments of recent times.

What made Spain's 1-0 victory over football superpower Germany so satisfying was the manner in which it was achieved.

A team of highly talented footballers played the game as it was meant to be played -- with the ball at their feet -- and drew on their full repertoire of skills to overcome a series of worthy opponents to take European football's greatest prize.

Spain did the game another service in that they finally cast aside the label of perennial underachievers that had dogged them since they won their only other trophy, the European Championship of 1964.

"At last justice has been done and the team that played the best football won the tournament," said Fernando Torres who decided the game with a superbly taken goal that combined the guile and pace which has characterised the Spanish game throughout Euro 2008.

Argentine World Cup winning coach Cesar Menotti once famously said that Spain would never win anything at international level until they decided if they wanted to be "the bull or the bullfighter".

Scores of previous Spanish teams have been caught between the two stools, but the 2008 vintage, managed by Luis Aragones, opted firmly for the latter.