& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

The best-ever by now?

The Guardian
It is only right that a unique team, as Spain are, should stand alone in the pantheon. No international side has won three major tournaments in a row before, unless you count the Olympics in the 1920s and 1930s. Since Euro 2008 they have exerted a numbing superiority over every team they have played and even those who advocate Satan for a living might struggle to argue that Spain are not the strongest international side of all.
Spain's miracle has been drastically to minimise the variables of knockout football and make themselves near to unbeatable. Even a more talented Barcelona side could not come close to such invincibility. Spain have not conceded a goal in a knockout game since 2006. Iker Casillas's net has been untouched for sixteen and ahalf hours.
Before Sunday night Spain had not been so spectacular at the other end, with only eight goals in seven games at the 2010 World Cup and eight in five here, yet their method of killing teams sofdy has an irresistible logic. The level of sustained concentration required to defend against them is almost indecent, a game of Tetris that can end only one way. If such demands were evident in an ordinary job, the Health and Safety office would have a field
day.
The side generally perceived as the greatest of all, Brazil 1970, were the antithesis of Spain; their defence was hopeless and their attack peerless. They cannot match Spain's longevity. With no Copa America staged between 1967 and 1975, Brazil won just one trophy. At the 1974World Cup they had turned into a thuggish rabble.
Spain have evolved significantly over the last four years, although their game can still be explained in one phonetically pleasing phrase: tiki-taka. Few sides have had such a concise identity, with Holland's Total Football in 1974 perhaps the only equivalent. Not since that team has football been so dramatically redefined.
Teams who win multiple tournaments usually add stars to their shirt, just above the badge. Some will feel Spain should add an asterisk. It is a strange thing on which to reflect after such a joyous, unfettered performance, yet Spain's display vindicated only the naysayers. Discussion about the B-word has become boring in itself — it is surely more relevant to discuss whether Spain's matches are boring, a different point entirely — even if it is interesting to note that the team's heartbeat and rhetorician, Xavi Hernandez, said "of course we were boring" at the 2010 World Cup, citing defensive opponents as the reason.
Spain’s football is without prece-
dent in its velvet grace but it is difficult to argue persuasively that their matches have satisfied conventional notions of football entertainment --goals, shots, engaging the viscera; that kind of thing.
Their play at Euro 2012 had felt cynical and clinical, in a different sense of the word from that usually used in football; a kind of extreme tikitaka, or tiki-takanaccio. For much of the tournament the only excitement came from the partnership of Jordi Alba and the divine Andras Iniesta, simply the most beautiful player in football history.
Italy's relatively aggressive tactics were influential, yet the way Spain subjected them to death by silk suggested a team that had been hiding some of their light under a bushel. For plenty, rightly or wrongly, Spain will be remembered as a side who engaged the brain more than the soul and who could, with their talent, have won three consecutive titles even more impressively than they did, a binary team whose games, before the final at least, had been so predictable as to be a bookmaker's nightmare.
That Spain are great is palpably not in question, not in sentient circles; whether they are one of the immortal sides remains open to debate. On Sunday night they supplied a signature performance, even if it was not quite up there with the greatest, like FROM PAGE 16
England 3-6 Hungary in 1953 — which has its own page on Wikipedia, eBay and even IMDb -- or Barcelona's 5-0 defeat of Real Madrid in 2010. Spain have not had a great contest, like West Germany's 2-1 over Holland in 1974 or Brazil's 1-0 against England four years earlier, or a great goal. Delicious as their first goal was against Italy — it's not quite right to call it David Silva's goal, such was the part played by Iniesta and Cesc Fabregas — it will not be appearing on a BBC3 clips show alongside Carlos Alberto, Marco van Basten and Richard Bacon any time soon.
Spain have not necessarily been a team of great moments. Those of a Spanish disposition will disagree, of course. There have been three in particular, the lifting of trophies by Iker Casillas. Moments that define a team who, whether loved or merely respected, have created one of the greatest sporting dynasties of them all.