Criticism of Italy's tactics is not likely to change the way they play, says Roberto Gotta

Car horns stayed silent on Sunday night, July 2. How ironic it has been to see one of the dullest, most defensive national teams of all time come within a minute of winning a tournament they had entered without much hope. Whenever Italy enter a tournament with low expectations, they fare much better than when they are expected to do well. It happened in Argentina 78 and, memorably, in Spain 82, when the Italy camp was torn by controversies and the team was barely seen as capable of progressing to the second round (which they did, just), then went on to win it.

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In four years the previous european champions have turned into a laughing stock. Peter Schimkat investigates the German malaise

Germany were neither the worst team at Euro 2000 (Denmark) nor the most boring one (Norway), though it has to be admitted that we ran both of them pretty close. What’s more, it was clear to everyone that this was not an isolated failure. Following the defeat by England, nobody gave a damn about that match. Everyone was far more interested in discussing what had gone so horribly wrong in the last couple of years.

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Once the real tournament started, luck played a bigger part than the so-called great players. That's how Cris Freddi saw it anyway

The main theme of Euro 2000, if there was one, changed from round to round. Early on we were talking about the northern European countries going home. The straight lines they played in, how static they were when they received the ball. Meanwhile, the sophisticated southerners controlled the ball in an instant and could play in any position.

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It was political arrogance nd clumsiness, not hooliganism, that cost England the chance to stage the 2006 World Cup, says Alan Tomlinson

Brussels is an engaging mix of the old and the new. At one end of Boulevard Adolphe Max, itself littered with seedy sex shops and chambres privées, lies Place de la Bourse, one of the gathering points in the city, and a focus for the riot police when fans were getting out of hand. At the other end is a concrete wasteland of ugly buildings, among which lies the Sheraton, a shrine to the glamour and opulence of postwar reconstruction.

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It's getting better all the time, but too many England fans till carry unnecessary baggage. Tom Davies saw mixed messages on display at Euro 2000

Anyone stumbling unawares into the neutral section behind one of the goals at the Czech Republic v France game in Bruges might have been forgiven for wondering who was playing. For there, amid the smattering of French blue and Czech red, were five Leyton Orient shirts. Admittedly I was wearing one of them, but this is no parochial club boast – there were also shirts and flags from Wycombe and Colchester and Cambridge and Burnley. Together, they represent English football’s forgotten travelling contingent – the dedicated neutrals – and they were out in force in the Low Countries.

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