Spain 1-0 Germany

Torres! Torres!

In a funny way, it kind of feels fitting that a chap who’s become very well known to the English, should score the decisive goal in a tournament bereft of an English presence. I could easily make a point about how this is symptomatic of the number of foreigners thriving in the English game whilst England itself suffers from a chronic lack of decent English players. But instead I’d just like to enjoy the fact that Fer-nan-do Torr-es hit the winner. Because I like Torres. Even if he looks like a 12 year old boy.

It’s the way he glides with a superhuman grace about the pitch – particularly with the ball at his feet. As a defender, if you let Torres turn and face you, you are essentially screwed. He goes past people so easily – not really with any great trickery, just tremendously quick feet and great control. And like more and more of today’s strikers, he strikes the ball with very little backlift, and it just flashes into the net.

His winning goal last night, though, was of a very different breed. Somehow getting round Philip Lahm without fouling the wee fella, he managed to lift a magnificent finish over the advancing Lehmann and then watched it scootle inside the far post. Superb.

I’d decided to watch this in the Famous Three Kings in West Kensington. Hardly a Spanish-named tapas bar, I know, but hey – I had Robolimb to think about. I had envisaged arriving at the couple of smallish Spanish bars I’d found online, finding the place completely rammed hours before kick-off, and being forced to perch on my one half-decent leg supported only by the rammed Iberian hordes around me.

The Three Kings seemed like an obvious choice. I’d heard it described as the boozer of choice for the Spanish during Euro 2008 (or, indeed, THE boozer of choice for any football fan in Euro 2008 ) – not sure if there’s a big Spanish contingent in West Kensington, or whether it’s just the place to be. Added to that I’d been there before, it is literally next door to the tube station, it has loads and loads of screens and a reasonably sized bar.

It is an excellent football pub – and an excellent pub in its own right, for that matter. The last time I was here was with the London Blades contingent, where they were showing Liverpool v United on one screen, West Ham v Spurs on the one behind us, Blackburn v Someone on the telly behind the bar, and Bundesliga on in the little bar off to the right. Given the latter, it was no surprise when I came out of the tube station and found myself at the back of a queue full of white shirts and red yellow and black face paint.

My immediate thought was “oh dear”, eased only slightly by the instant appearance of my fellow Europubber. This was a reasonably-sized queue which potentially indicated that the pub was already full – or, as I’d found before, that the pub required tickets. Fortunately, I was wrong – although regrettably, as my unfortunate mate found out ten minutes or so later, it was about to become full and they locked the doors.
£3.50 to get in with a complementary Bud – didn’t seem like too bad a deal, particularly as my other two Europubbers for the evening had already bagged a comfy sofa, which quickly became two comfy sofas. And I didn’t even have to use Robolimb for the sympathy vote.

Luckily – as I was intent on supporting the Spanish, not least because I had sweepstake money riding on it – there were plenty of Spaniards inside already. The pub had cleverly divided (not segregated) itself into Spanish and German bars/screens, and although we were sat in the Spanish area, the noise was all for the men in red. Viva!

Before kick-off, a pub employee on a mic announced that the Spanish coverage – on BBC – was about two seconds ahead of the German coverage (presumably on a German channel, given the Bundesliga). He asked the Germans if they wanted the channel changing to BBC, which seemed to be met with disapproval. Cue a large number of Spanish fans chanting “BBC, BBC, BBC!” in response.

The game started a little hesitantly for the Spanish, with Germany on the front foot. For all of ten minutes, after which Spain cruised. Xavi found teammates in space with ease. Iniesta teased and tormented his way down the left and into the box. A cross was turned goalwards by a German defender and somehow behind by Lehmann’s instinctive reaction. Torres hit the post with a header and the ball somehow failed to rebound to a red shirt. Lehmann saved again, and again, and then Torres struck and the pub erupted.

The Spanish national anthem doesn’t have any words. How good is that! Instead their fans just “na na na NA NAA NAAAH NA NAAAAH” along to it. Brilliant!

Germany were lame. The whole pub was in stitches at Podolski’s reaction to Silva’s head-peck (can’t really call it a butt). It would only have been funnier if he’d given it the full backflipping-dolphin impression and hurled himself to the turf. After the match the BBC showed a “Ballack chance” which was basically Chelsea’s finest shinning a half-volley into the side-netting with Casillas having it well covered. That was about as good as it got.

Spain pressed and pressed, Fabregas, Iniesta and Xavi once again to the fore. Spain actually looked better without Villa and just Torres up front on his own – a 4-5-1 with players perfectly suited to the formation, and everyone knowing what they should be doing. Lehmann saved a couple more times, Marcos Senna was this close to toeing in a second (shades of Gazza v Germany in Euro 96!), and Metzelder kneed one off the line.

For a horrible, horrible moment, I thought that my prediction that Germany would somehow nick it was going to come true. A prediction made in the hope that it would not come true. Fortunately, it didn’t.

The final whistle blew, the Spanish went crazy. Not in an insane, glass-smashing beer frenzy way, but in a genuinely happy, disbelieving sort of way. An “I can’t believe this has happened to our boys” sort of way.

I must admit there was a touch of jealousy in my otherwise genuine shared delight at the Spanish victory. As they all danced and hugged each other, I was left wondering – will I ever feel like that with England? More pertinently, would I feel like that if the current bunch of cretins and twats had qualified and won the tournament? Perhaps I’m not actually as cynical as that. But anyway, food for thought.

Before the cheers and whistles had died away – a good couple of minutes later – the pub started playing We Are The Champions. It was both amusing and touching to see everyone stop jumping around singing Spanish football songs of victory and launch straight into Queen instead. In English. True multiculturalism at work!

Meanwhile the German fans slunk out. But there was barely a sad face in sight – it was as though even they were enjoying the scenes of Spanish celebration. Maybe it’s because they’re a far more successful footballing nation than us, it doesn’t hurt as much. Hmm. That seems a little condescending. Maybe they don’t take their football as seriously. Well, who knows. Either way, they took defeat with good grace.

We had a celebratory pint and then headed for home. On the Piccadilly Line, I became aware of singing from the forthcoming station. On the platform were a group of perhaps 20 Spaniards, singing their hearts out. They all piled into one carriage and carried on singing. At the next station, heads turned towards that carriage, and every Spaniard on the station ran down the platform and piled in with the rest. This continued until I got off – you had a “singing carriage” that reminded me very slightly of the flying party in Life, The Universe and Everything.

It was a fitting end to a fun night, and a great tournament. And a great experience for me. I’ll end this post here, and I’m going to take a couple of days out to gather my thoughts on the whole thing… and then post them here. Watch this space.