Mediterranean magic lifts spirits

As the Spanish sports newspaper Marca put it so beautifully on Thursday morning, "Long live the mother who gave birth to you". They were referring specifically to the woman who introduced to this world Alfonso Perez, who scored Spain's winner in that 4-3 epic against Yugoslavia, but also generally to the mammies of the entire Spanish team. Their injury-time comeback on Wednesday afternoon topped off a game that would have raised the spirits of the weariest of football souls and left those who doubt the "character" of Mediterranean players a tad stunned. And for those of you who can never quite understand why some of us are so ludicrously besotted by this sport, it provided a glorious explanation. Even the cynics would have been smitten.

It wasn't the final goal tally that made it so sumptuous (Bradford City and Wimbledon can share seven goals between them, it doesn't mean that the game was worth watching), it was the skill, technique, creativity, imagination, ingenuity, subtlety, vision and sheer sublime talent (many thanks to Microsoft Word's thesaurus) on view, from both teams.

If the game was good, Alfonso's goal celebrations were worthy of the occasion, rivalling Marco Tardelli's tearfully ecstatic response to scoring for Italy in the 1982 World Cup final against West Germany. Added to the 3-3 draw between Slovenia and Yugoslavia, Portugal's display against England, a few Romanian, Dutch, Turkish and Italian cameos and the very existence of Zinedine Zidane (and his understudy Johan Micoud) and Pavel Nedved in the tournament, it was enough to restore faith. The highlight? It was the 90th minute, Spain were 3-2 down, needing to win to go through to the quarter-finals. The ball was played out to Joseba Etxeberria on the right wing, he whipped in a cross that was headed out by a Yugoslav defender. The ball fell to Pedro Munitis at the edge of the box. Did he swing desperately at it in the hope that it would be deflected past the goalkeeper by one of the many bodies between him and the goal? No. He calmly back-heeled it, millimetre perfect, into the path of Josep Guardiola.

Did Guardiola panic and hoof it in a goalwards direction? Nope. Imagine Seve Ballesteros, in his prime, chipping from an impossible lie towards the green. Ah yes, there's magic in them there wrists. Guardiola? There's magic in them there feet. Composed and confident in his technique, he chipped the ball over the onrushing defenders, with all the flair of an imperious young Seve, and only for brilliant goalkeeping he would have scored the goal of the tournament. Any tournament. The goalkeeper's save led to a corner, which in turn led to another wave of Spanish attacks, passionate but poised. Their reward was great, two more goals without even sending their goalie and centre halves up into the opposing box. Now think back to England in the final desperate moments of their game against Romania, after they had gone 3-2 down. Hoof after hopeful frenzied hoof. If Ireland had been there it would have been the same, with Alan Kelly very probably attempting to meet the Garryowen lobbed into the box by Mark Kennedy.

Ireland (North and South), Scotland and Wales didn't qualify for the tournament; England and the Scandinavian countries - Norway, Sweden and Denmark - with their ample supply of Premiership players were, on the whole, outclassed and are back home. Southern European football (see France, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Romania and Italy) and its devotion to technique and skill occupies the bulk of the quarter-final berths.

"Too many English-born players still `train' rather than `practise'," said the Daily Telegraph's Paul Hayward on Thursday in his assessment of the weaknesses of the "British" game. True enough. Consider the bewildered reaction to Eric Cantona's freakish behaviour during his time at Manchester United, when he stayed on after "training" to "practice" his basic skills. This, English football concluded, added weight to the view that he was eccentric. This, Cantona insisted, was what footballers should do to become good at their job. It's not all that surprising to learn that the two United players who followed Cantona's example, by staying on after those sessions devoted to physical fitness to work on their basic skills and technique, were Paul Scholes and David Beckham, two of the few England players to look any way comfortable in Euro 2000 company.

Beckham might not even be close to the "world-class" status granted him by the English media, but his free-kicks and crossing ability - the two areas of his game he works on in those "after-training" sessions - are, generally, superb, while Scholes' basic skills make him stand out above most of his team-mates. Practice makes perfect, after all.

Why, then, do the coaches and footballers of these islands believe "good engines" are all you need to succeed in the game? Just ask Alfonso Perez's Ma, she'll tell you: the ability to trap a bag of cement comes in handy too. Especially if you want to mix it with the elite of European football.