Thanks to Germany and subsequently Italy, I lost a significant share of a football expert reputation I enjoyed with my friends and relatives.

Just like in Lviv, getting to the stadium required quite substantial physical effort since the security zone commenced ca. 2 km from the final arena. As usual, there happened to be a few drivers - life optimists who believed they would still find their way and ark the car somewhere near the stadium however they had to face here a severe policeman's hand equipped with a stick. No entry. And not mercy from the police troops.

In the direct proximity of the stadium a few private enterpreneurs we re offering us tickets for the final without excessive impertinence. As it soon appeared, circa 7 thousand seats were empty. UEFA claimed all tickets had been sold out though. Where did the gap come from then? According to aone theory, those lucky ones who got the tickets free of charge from the so called corporate sponsors made a little calculation and refrained from coming to Ukraine: room pricing on the match day was appalling whereas flight connections have not been yet developped to the degree it would ensure the best option i.e. arrival on the mtach day and departure the other day.

Back to the final itself: Spanish roller had smashed Italy whose chances for the ultimate success were apparently not small, in particular having defeated Germany in the semi-final. It is almost given that - even if it had not been for the Squadra Azzura finishing ht match in "ten", this would have had hardly any impact upon Spain performance that evening. The latter sounds highly unprecise and unjust: Vincente del Bosque team has been performing extremely well for at least four years, capturing European Cup in 2008, World Cup in 2010 and again European Cup in 2012. It would be pointless for me to be in a race for complimenting the Iberian Peninsula football heroes, everything was said and written about Iniesta, Xavi, Casillas, Pique and others. I have to admit though that Spanish football was either funny (excellent technical skills plus zero tactics) or irritating to me several years ago whilst these days this is class for itself and the essence of beauty and joy of football. Full stop.

Surprisingly enough, Italy was not put under fire of critics by their own media although 0:4 was far from a "decent" result. The journalist most probably reckoned something similar to my brother's conclusions: "if a horse loses in a race against a car, you can not realyy blame the horse it was ill prepared". German newspapers pointed their fingers at Pirlo who played a superb tournament except the final where he was so busy with defence duties that he found hardly any time for creativity. Balotelli did not exist this time which may prove a theory he was enormously lucky in the clash against Germany few days in prior.

We, Poles, will still be mourning our team's underperformance for a coule of more weeks and then be back to our daily routine hoping the new coach will break the wicked circle and go for some success. Under current circumstances, qualification for World Cup 2014 in brazil out of the group with England and Ukraine is going to be a success, no doubt.