Italy get revenge for Euro 2012

Relive the most striking moments from the day's Euro action, with Italy topping the reigning champs, and an Iceland upset. 

An hour-and-a-half had passed by the time they left the Stade de France, champions once but no more, and headed south to La Rochelle, where they boarded a plane home the following day.

Early exit again. Is this them now? Spain were not Spain, it seemed, but what if they were? What if this is the truth? As Gerard Piqué departed, he was asked if anything positive could be taken from Euro 2016. At first he said no, not when you go out in the last 16, but then he gave an answer that was a troubling one: Maybe this had put Spain in their place, he said.

Their place? Out early, not even reaching the quarterfinals? Their place is no longer at the top, it is true. This was "The End," perhaps, but it had begun in Brazil. It was no one-off. The world champions had been the first team home from the World Cup; eight teams have lasted longer than them here, defeated twice in four games. "End of an Era" said the cover of AS. "We're not the best any more," Marca said. For the first time in eight years, Spain do not have a title to defend. The question raised by Piqué is whether they have a title to compete for at all.

Ultimately, they did not really compete for this one. There can be no complaints about the defeat. In the end, Spain rebelled at least, which was when they encountered Gigi Buffon. There was pride and play -- chances, too. But it was at the end, and they had gotten that far because of the chances Italy had passed up and the shots David De Gea had saved. For an hour, Spain could hardly touch Italy.

After Brazil 2014, Vicente Del Bosque insisted the selección had been knocked out for "purely footballing reasons," but he never really offered an explanation as to those reasons. Here, the early analysis offered tentative answers, from tiredness to tactics to the way what one player called an "excess of confidence" became a lack of it, a kind of creeping fatalism. "We had too many doubts," Andrés Iniesta said.

Defeat against Croatia changed everything, not least mentally. A seemingly simple path to the final became the most difficult journey of all. "We created a mountain," Piqué said. It was the north face of the Eiger: Italy, Germany, France. They could beat one, perhaps, and maybe even two but not all three. If you don't believe you can beat all three, you won't beat one.

No country's squad had accumulated as many minutes as Spain this season. Eight times they have tried, but they have never won a major tournament when a Spanish team has won the European Cup. Is that coincidence? This time, they ran less and less quickly. Spain were slow, sluggish, lacking something. Some of their players are not what they were; they are older, not better.

Sharpness isn't just physical -- it is also mental. The first goal was a portrait of a deficit of concentration, intensity and alertness, with De Gea still pointing and Piqué turning as the run-up began. Everyone, bar Piqué, was still standing as the ball hit the net. Four Italian players stood barely 2 yards from goal with a solitary Spaniard for company.

Chiellini's opening goal caught Spain unawares, even though they knew they would struggle with Italy's system.

Nor did Spain come to grips with Italy's system; Xavi's warning in Gazzetta dello Sport, about the difficulties they have when facing a three-man central defence, soon became an obsession. It was prescient and clear-sighted. The Dutch had defeated them that way and Chile too. Now, Italy had done the same. They can't say they weren't warned, and there was something startling about Juanfran's admission that "with that system of theirs," Spain "could not stop them" and the recognition that Italy "had everything under control, systematically."

It was all the more stunning when he added that "this goes back some way. This system with a line of five has caused us problems before," when he insisted, "It's not that we hadn't worked on it or talked about it because we had all foreseen this" and when he said, "We have to work on it to see if we can overcome it in the future." Spain's players had known, but they had been powerless to dismantle it, and they had not been able to ignore it and impose their game.

"We were too focused on Italy," Iniesta said.

Yet it was striking that Piqué should also pose the question of style, Spain's very identity, the one that took them to unprecedented success and three tournaments win in a row. Above all, it was striking that he should offer the simplest of analyses: Maybe Spain just isn't that good anymore.

On the eve of the game, Antonio Conte said that if you were guided by only logic, life would be dull. Logic said Spain would win, he suggested, but Italy had not come as "sacrificial lambs." In the end, that discourse was proven correct; the doubt might be if it was also proven exaggerated. "Nothing is impossible," he insisted. Beating Spain certainly wasn't. He said Italy would need to produce an "extraordinary" performance. As it turned out, "ordinary" was not a bad description of Spain. 

Vicente Del Bosque and Spain leave France, but will this spell the end for the Spain manager? 

"We have to be realistic," Piqué said. "We don't have the level that we had a few of years ago, when we were champions of Europe and champions of the world. We have to accept that. We have to undertake a big reflection, both in terms of style and level. We knew we weren't favourites before the tournament. We're not a good enough level to win a big tournament. This put us in our place."

It is a new place. For eight years, Spain were unique, the most successful team of them all, revolutionaries who changed the game and conquered all. With time, their achievements might appear greater yet, the reverence and respect growing even deeper. Once the realisation hits that emulating those men is not so easy, there might be a greater awareness that what they achieved really was extraordinary. Some players might be re-evaluated -- the relative lack of recognition for David Villa has long baffled, by the way -- and their worth might be reinforced, their contribution not just to Spain but also to football.

Losing might even help that. Perhaps, once the initial impact has faded, there might be a recognition that this is not so unusual. Winning is not easy. Losing is normal.

"I was looking at the managers, and I thought that of the 24, only one will win," Del Bosque said at the start of the tournament. After it, Juanfran insisted, "It's normal that people want changes, humans are like that. When things go badly, people want changes. It's a good job that it is not up to people from the outside to take that decision. I would be in favour of not going mad. I was there four years ago when we won. Now we have lost, but that doesn't make this a bad team."

Spain's players were reflective and respectful after losing to Italy, a defeat that draws a line under this era.

No, but it does make it not as good of a team. Then again, being that good is virtually impossible. Defeat underlines how difficult victory is and how good Spain were. It sometimes felt like people did not always see that at the time. In 2012, by which time winning alone was not enough, there were doubts and complaints (accusations too) right up to the day Spain beat Italy 4-0 in perhaps the finest final performance ever.

"You don't normally enjoy a final, but we enjoyed that," Cesc Fabregas said. He didn't enjoy this.

"For four years, we were the only team to make them sweat," Buffon said. There was honour in even competing with Spain. This time, he and his teammates finally won. In the end, Italy erupted. Their reaction told you how big this was.

Spain's reaction was eloquent too. There was hurt, but there was a kind of acceptance, an awareness that the end had come, just as it had to.

Nothing lasts forever, still less something this good. Some of the players were the same, but Spain were not. Their era started against Italy, with a quarterfinal victory in 2008, and it ended with Italy, with a 4-0 victory in the 2012 final, their last success, and a 2-0 defeat in Paris, their last day as champions.

It was good. It was perhaps the best. But it is gone now.

CREDIT TO:http://www.espnfc.co.uk/team/spain/164/blog/post/2904019/spain-acknowledge-and-accept-the-end-of-an-era-with-defeat-vs-italy-at-euro-2016