Olympic Stadium, Kiev
SPAIN 4-0 ITALY
SPAIN Casillas (c) - Arbeloa, Ramos, Pique, Alba - Busquets, Xavi, Alonso, Iniesta (Mata 87), Silva (Pedro 59), Fabregas (Torres 75). Goals Silva 14, Alba 40, Torres 84, Mata 88
Kick-off 7:45pm on BBC/ITV Attendance 60,000 Referee Pedro Proença (Portugal)
SPAIN answered their critics, including me who labelled them with the boring tag, by smashing four goals past Italy in the Euro 2012 Final.
In doing so, the Spanish made history, becoming the first team to win three consecutive international tournaments following their victories at Euro 2008 and World Cup 2010.
Better still, Vicente del Bosque's men entered into the record books with some breathtaking football in this Final match, despite again playing most of it without a recognised striker.
Certainly, the Spanish started well with the most notable effort coming from Xavi who only just cleared the crossbar with his shot on the edge of the box.
It seemed only a matter of time before Spain would score, and the inevitable happened when Andres Iniesta's pin-point pass found Cesc Fabregas on the right of the penalty area.
The former Arsenal man twisted and turned past his marker Giorgio Chiellini before floating a perfect pull-back for David Silva to score with a rare header.
The goal, with less than quarter of an hour gone, forced the Italians to adopt a more attacking approach.
Straight away, the Azzurri seemed to get more into the game and a series of corners and free-kicks did well to stretch Iker Casillas.
Italy continued to be on top of proceedings in the middle of the half, with Antonio Cassano trying to sneak in a shot at the near post before trying his luck minutes later from further out.
In fact, the dominance of Cesare Prandelli's men even extended into possession of the ball but, despite being out-passed for once, the Spanish defence and keeper Casillas seemed equal to every task.
Of course, the Italians remained vulnerable to Spain doubling their lead, on the stroke of half-time, the Azzurri's worst nightmares were imagined.
The second goal came from new Barcelona left-back Jordi Alba who capped a magnificent tournament for him personally by completing a fantastic one-two with Xavi.
Alba picked up the wonderfully-weighted return pass after a blistering run before placing the ball just past Gianluigi Buffon into the corner of the net.
"Football doesn't get much better than that," opined BBC summariser Mark Lawrenson - and, for once, he was correct. Italy now had a monumental task with which to begin the second half.
Nevertheless, Prandelli's men came out fighting gamely.
Half-time substitute Antonio Di Natale almost scored with his first-touch but he could only put his header from Ignazio Abate's cross onto the roof of the net.
Then, after Fabregas just failed to come out on top in a goalmouth scramble at the other end, Di Natale also had Italy's next chance with a fierce drive at goal.
But, just as this excellent end-to-end Final looked to be moving into a higher gear, the game ended as a contest when Thiaggo Motta went down with a pulled hamstring within five minutes of coming on.
This was disastrous for the Italians for whom Motta was a third substitute, following an early injury to Chiellini and a tactical change at half-time to bring on Di Natale. Suddenly, the Italian Job had become Mission: Impossible.
Spain had all the cards in their favour now, and they added salt into Azzurri wounds by introducing Fernando Torres and Juan Mata for Fabregas and Iniesta.
First, on 84 minutes, Torres beat a poor offside trap against increasingly-exhausted defence to become the first man to score in two separate European Championship finals.
Then, with just a minute of the 90 remaining, Mata capped his six minutes of play in the entirety of Euro 2012 with the fourth goal, after a unselfish square pass by Torres.
Incredibly, that assist meant the £50m Chelsea striker won the tournament's Golden Boot with three goals and assist.
Those statistics put him level with Germany's Mario Gomez but the unfancied Torres, of course, did it all in fewer minutes, appearing on the pitch for only 189 in total.
Meanwhile, Torres' opposite number, Balotelli - who worked hard but barely featured in the game - had a rather petulant reaction to Italy's defeat, knocking himself intentionally the fourth official at the final whistle.
It was certainly a disappointing end to a fine tournament for the Manchester City youngster whose day on the international stage is surely yet to come.
After all, he is still only 21 and, in fairness to him, his reaction is perhaps slightly understandable for, truly, Italy did not deserve a four-goal defeat.
In a slightly contradictory way, however, Spain did deserve their four-goal victory.
True, much of the second half was against 10 men. However, Spain had already put themselves into a winning position by then - and they did so by actually using their vaunted superior passing ability to penetrate the opposition defence.
Indeed, this epic display by La Roja - perhaps more than any other match - could yet be the abiding memory of Spain's unprecedented era of dominance.
The task for the rest of Europe, and indeed the world, remains the same as it has been for the last four years: to stop them, somehow.
FOR THE RECORD
GROUP STAGE
Opening matches - First round fallers
GROUP A
| TV | Date/time (BST) | Venue | |
| BBC | Fri 8 June, 17:00 | POLAND 1-1 GREECE | Warsaw |
| ITV | Fri 8 June, 19:45 | RUSSIA 4-1 CZECH REPUBLIC | Wroclaw |
| ITV | Tue 12 June, 17:00 | GREECE 1-2 CZECH REPUBLIC | Wroclaw |
| ITV | Tue 12 June, 19:45 | POLAND 1-1 RUSSIA | Warsaw |
| BBC | Sat 16 June, 19:45 | CZECH REPUBLIC 1-0 POLAND | Wroclaw |
| BBC | Sat 16 June, 19:45 | GREECE 1-0 RUSSIA | Warsaw |
| Group A | W | D | L | F | A | Pts |
| CZECH REPUBLIC | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| GREECE | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 4 |
| RUSSIA | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 4 |
| POLAND | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
GROUP B
| TV | Date/time (BST) | Venue | |
| BBC | Sat 9 June, 17:00 | NETHERLANDS 0-1 DENMARK | Kharkiv |
| BBC | Sat 9 June, 19:45 | GERMANY 1-0 PORTUGAL | Lviv |
| ITV | Wed 13 June, 17:00 | DENMARK 2-3 PORTUGAL | Lviv |
| BBC | Wed 13 June, 19:45 | NETHERLANDS 1-2 GERMANY | Kharkiv |
| ITV | Sun 17 June, 19:45 | PORTUGAL 2-1 NETHERLANDS | Kharkiv |
| ITV | Sun 17 June, 19:45 | DENMARK 1-2 GERMANY | Lviv |
| Group B | W | D | L | F | A | Pts |
| GERMANY | 3 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 9 |
| PORTUGAL | 2 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 6 |
| DENMARK | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 3 |
| NETHERLANDS | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 0 |
GROUP C
| TV | Date/time (BST) | Venue | |
| ITV | Sun 10 June, 17:00 | SPAIN 1-1 ITALY | Gdansk |
| ITV | Sun 10 June, 19:45 | IRELAND 1-3 CROATIA | Poznan |
| BBC | Thu 14 June, 17:00 | ITALY 1-1 CROATIA | Poznan |
| ITV | Thu 14 June, 19:45 | SPAIN 4-0 IRELAND | Gdansk |
| BBC | Mon 18 June, 19:45 | CROATIA 0-1 SPAIN | Gdansk |
| BBC | Mon 18 June, 19:45 | ITALY 2-0 IRELAND | Poznan |
| Group C | W | D | L | F | A | Pts |
| SPAIN | 2 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 1 | 7 |
| ITALY | 1 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 5 |
| CROATIA | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 4 |
| IRELAND | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 9 | 0 |
GROUP D
| TV | Date/time (BST) | Venue | |
| ITV | Mon 11 June, 17:00 | FRANCE 1-1 ENGLAND | Donetsk |
| BBC | Mon 11 June, 19:45 | UKRAINE 2-1 SWEDEN | Kiev |
| ITV | Fri 15 June, 17:00 | UKRAINE 0-2 FRANCE | Donetsk |
| BBC | Fri 15 June, 19:45 | SWEDEN 2-3 ENGLAND | Kiev |
| ITV | Tue 19 June, 19:45 | ENGLAND 1-0 UKRAINE | Donetsk |
| ITV | Tue 19 June, 19:45 | SWEDEN 2-0 FRANCE | Kiev |
| Group D | W | D | L | F | A | Pts |
| ENGLAND | 2 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 7 |
| FRANCE | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 4 |
| UKRAINE | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3 |
| SWEDEN | 1 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 3 |
QUARTER FINALS Match reports
| TV | Date/time (BST) | Venue | |
| BBC | Thu 21 June, 19:45 | CZECH REPUBLIC 0-1 PORTUGAL | Warsaw |
| ITV | Sat 23 June, 19:45 | SPAIN 2-0 FRANCE | Donetsk |
| ITV | Fri 22 June, 19:45 | GERMANY 4-2 GREECE | Gdansk |
| BBC | Sun 24 June, 19:45 | ENGLAND 0-0 ITALY* | Kiev |
SEMI FINALS Match reports
| TV | Date/time (BST) | Venue | |
| BBC | Wed 27 June, 19:45 | PORTUGAL 0-0 SPAIN* | Donetsk |
| BBC | Thu 28 June, 19:45 | GERMANY 1-2 ITALY | Warsaw |
SCORERS
Golden Boot winner: Fernando Torres (3 goals, 1 assist in fewer minutes [189] than Mario Gomez [282])
3 Fernando Torres (Spain), Alan Dzagoev (Russia), Mario Gomez (Germany), Mario Mandzukic (Croatia), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Mario Balotelli (Italy)
2 Andriy Shevchenko (Ukraine), Vaclav Pilar (Czech Republic), Cesc Fabregas (Spain), Petr Jiracek (Czech Republic), Nicklas Bendtner (Denmark), Michael Krohn-Dehli (Denmark), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Sweden), Xabi Alonso (Spain), Dimitris Salpingidis (Greece), David Silva (Spain)
1 Robert Lewandowski (Poland), Roman Shirokov (Russia), Roman Pavlyuchenko (Russia), Antonio di Natale (Italy), Sean St Ledger (Ireland), Nikola Jelavic (Croatia), Joleon Lescott (England), Samir Nasri (France), Theofanis Gekas (Greece), Jakub Blaszczykowski (Poland), Pepe (Portugal), Helder Postiga (Portugal), Silvestre Valera (Portugal), Robin van Persie (Netherlands), Andrea Pirlo (Italy), Jeremy Menez (France), Yohan Cabaye (France), Andy Carroll (England), Olof Mellberg (Sweden), Theo Walcott (England), Danny Welbeck (England), Giorgos Karagounis (Greece), Rafael van der Vaart (Netherlands), Lukas Podolski (Germany), Lars Bender (Germany), Antonio Cassano (Italy), Jesus Navas (Spain), Wayne Rooney (England), Sebastian Larsson (Sweden), Philipp Lahm (Germany), Giorgios Samaras (Greece), Sami Khedira (Germany), Miroslav Klose (Germany), Marko Reus (Germany), Mesut Oezil (Germany), Juan Mata (Spain)
1 own goal Glen Johnson (England) for Sweden
RED CARDS
Sokratis Papastathopoulos (Greece) v Poland
Wojciech Szczesny (Poland) v Greece
Keith Andrews (Ireland) v Italy
Yellow cards: 123
CLASSIFICATION
1 SPAIN - beat Italy 4-0 in the Final
2 ITALY - lost to Spain 0-4 in the Final
3 PORTUGAL - lost to Spain in the semi finals on penalties after 0-0 draw
4 GERMANY - lost 1-2 to Italy in the semi finals
5 ENGLAND - lost to Italy in the quarter finals on penalties after 0-0 draw
6 CZECH REPUBLIC - lost 0-1 to Portugal in the quarter finals
7 GREECE - lost 2-4 to Germany in the quarter finals
8 FRANCE - lost 0-2 to Spain in the quarter finals
9 RUSSIA - eliminated at the group stage with four points (+2 GD)
10 CROATIA - eliminated at the group stage with four points (+1 GD)
11 SWEDEN - eliminated at the group stage with three points (0 GD)
12 DENMARK - eliminated at the group stage with three points (-1 GD)
13 UKRAINE - eliminated at the group stage with three points (-2 GD)
14 POLAND - eliminated at the group stage with two points
15 NETHERLANDS - eliminated at the group stage with zero points (-3 GD)
16 IRELAND - eliminated at the group stage with zero points (-8 GD)
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