I'm so sad right now, driving to work this morning and seeing the gloom in people's faces, no emotion... looks like after a month's vacation depression is back on this country. BUT... honestly, it was much worse 2 years ago, when Greece won the Euro. Back then, we all felt the best team lost; this time around the best team won. So, congrats to France and good-luck.
Breaking down our loss, there's 3 main factors and a couple minor reasons for our demise:
1) We have the best midfielders and defenders in the world. Getting this far in the biggest competition on earth with such a mediocre striker proves it. I don't want to crucify Pauleta, but facts are facts: he is useless against good teams. He can't hold the ball, he can't make a pass, he can't open for a team mate, he can't score a goal.
There's a play that defines Pauleta as a player and, in a certain way, is a metaphor for his career: he gets the chance to control the ball in a favourable position in relation to his markers, but lets the rock go past by him and dives shamefully.
I genuinely feel that with a class striker we would have been the best team this year.
2) I said early in this thread that Deco could be the decisive man - and he was. He got more time to rest than everyone else, but still he couldn't move his ass. Deco totally buried us in our attacking moves but, more importantly, he did not defend.
Carvalho, shortly before the play that led to France's penalty, was screaming for help from our magician. France realized Deco did not cover for their DM's runs into our midfield, which led to a 3-on-2 advantage outside our box, which led to Henry getting the ball inside the box with only Carvalho to mark him, and you know what happened.
3) Faith. We got this far by believing we were better than what we really are. Our mental attitude - also known as 'heart' - gave us an enormous confidence boost. Yesterday, especially in the second half, we did not believe we could beat France.
It isn't easy to explain, but you can smell when a team believes they can overcome a negative result and when they can't.
To be honest, I also did not believe we were going to play the final in Berlin since finding out our opponent was France.
The referee
I was surprised to see this uproar against the refereeing after the game, both from Scolari, some players and some supporters. I thought he was okay, honestly. In fact, if he had carded every player that dived both teams wouldn't reach the end of the match with 11 players.
Oh well, I guess the English have to blame it on their opponent's best player; we put the blame on the ref.
