End of an era: How Spain's reign came full circle with defeat to Italy

Who else could it be but Italy? It was a win over this opponent that marked the beginning of Spain’s era of dominance over Europe, Luis Aragones’ team ending an 88-year hoodoo when it squeezed past the Azzurri on penalties in the quarter-finals of Euro 2008. There were still two more opponents standing between Spain and its title, but with hindsight even Fernando Torres has acknowledged "that was the moment we won the tournament."

More than that, it was the moment when Spain ascended to become European football’s great unstoppable juggernaut, sweeping all opponents before them. The next four years would bring a first-ever World Cup win and then another continental title. Other nations, even Italy, scrabbled to imitate Spain's methods. The footballing world grew obsessed with tiki-taka.

Perhaps, by this summer, the mythology around this team had started to unravel. A chastening World Cup in Brazil two years ago saw Spain sent home before the knockout stage, after deserved defeats to both Holland and Chile. And yet, as Euro 2016 kicked off at the start of this month, La Furia Roja still looked an awful lot like favourites.

Spain had roared through qualifying with nine wins in 10 games and a plus-20 goal difference. Andres Iniesta was still pulling the strings, and Vicente del Bosque's side boasted a defence that looked near-on impenetrable. The two-time champion sailed past the Czech Republic and Turkey, and even a late collapse against Croatia could be written off as an accident, an act of carelessness rather than weakness.

Spain was still the king of Europe, in other words. But no more. On Monday at the Stade de France, the story came full circle.

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Italy had been deeply unfortunate to face such robust opposition at this stage of the competition. The majority of group winners at this tournament were rewarded with last-16 ties against third-place finishers. Antonio Conte’s team, instead, got lumbered with the reigning champion.

But maybe that was just how it needed to be.

Where else could the Spain Supremacy end but right back where it started? Over the past eight years, the Azzurri have undergone their own identity crisis, abandoning old principles and trying to make themselves more like the team that beat them in 2008. Under Cesare Prandelli, they embraced a possession-based passing game that even got nicknamed 'Tikitalia.'

Only in the past two years has Italy reverted to type, Antonio Conte building a team whose strength lay in hard graft, pragmatism and tactical cunning. These were the traits that Spain once feared, ones that led Marca to publish a searing editorial on the eve of that 2008 quarter-final, tarnishing Italians as "experts in 'the other football,' the maestros of time-wasting, of destroying games and subterranean play."

On the eve of this latest rematch, the Azzurri themselves were happy to indulge such stereotypes. "We are ugly, we are dirty," said centre-back Andrea Barzagli in one interview over the weekend. "We are whatever you want to call us." Gazzetta dello Sport had already come up with a definition of their own for Conte’s team, calling them "Glorious Bastards."

As the skies opened before kick-off at the Stade de France, it was easy to believe that such conditions might favour defensive cynicism. And yet it took only a matter of seconds for Italy to make clear that it could do so much more than play the spoiler. There were barely 30 seconds on the clock when Mattia De Sciglio pinched a pass off Juanfran’s toes and sprinted away down the left before swinging in his cross just a little too close to David De Gea.

Italy kept on coming. The Azzurri were dominating Spain in almost every area of the pitch, and doing so in style. Emanuele Giaccherini - he whose inclusion at this tournament was roundly mocked by those who called him a Sunderland reject - drew a brilliant save from De Gea with an overhead kick (even if the attempt would have been disallowed for a high boot if it had gone in). Daniele De Rossi nutmegged Iniesta.

The opening goal, when it came, was clumsy - Giorgio Chiellini clubbing the ball home awkwardly with his left foot after De Gea parried Eder’s free-kick - but richly deserved. Spain trudged in at the interval having completed its fewest passes (210) in a half of football at any major tournament since 2004.

Although Spain improved in the second-half - and might even have snatched a late equaliser through Gerard Pique, whose close-range effort drew a brilliant save from Gigi Buffon - they could hardly feel hard done-by. By contrast, Graziano Pelle’s late second goal for Italy felt like a just reward.

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Individually, he had been brilliant, putting in the hard yards up front that Conte demands but also demonstrating great subtlety at other times, and most notably when sending Eder clean through on goal with a gorgeous flick mid-way through the second-half. He was not the only one. De Sciglio supplied a series of brilliant crosses from the left but got back to make key challenges in defence too. Chiellini was a rock at the back.

And yet the success of this Italy team once again belonged to the collective. This group of much-maligned players had not just beaten Spain's collection of stars, but neutralised them all over the pitch, and yet still found a way to play their own game as well. That is a credit to Conte and his tactical vision, but to each and every player as well.

It was, quite simply, the best performance of any team so far at this tournament. To bring about the end of an era, that is how it needed to be.