When the European Championships, the world's second most prestigious football tournament, after the World Cup, kick off on June 7 in Basel, Switzerland, all the talk will be of the beautiful game and the transcendent talent that will decide the winner. Millions of Europeans will cling to their TV sets as 16 nations slug it out in 31 games in 8 cities in Switzerland and Austria, the joint hosts of the quadrennial series. There will no doubt be great moments and close calls. But if recent history is any guide, when the final whistle blows on June 29, the event is more likely to be remembered for goats' horns than heroism.
Why is it that football's biggest games seem to lend themselves to the sport's most dramatic failures? The World Cup is full of examples, from Roberto Baggio's missing high in the '94 championship shoot-out to French captain Zinedine Zidane's getting himself tossed for head-butting a lippy Italian defender in the '06 final. Or take last month's Champions League final in Moscow, which pitted England's Chelsea against Manchester United. There Man U's Cristiano Ronaldo—one of the game's biggest stars, who is sure to grab attention at the Euro Cup this month—seemed to freeze on his path to the ball during the final, tie-breaking shoot-out, firing weakly into the goalkeeper's chest. Thanks only to another blooper on the Chelsea side did Man U manage to eke out the crown.
There are many reasons that so many of football's biggest games are remembered not for their achievements but for their blunders. Championship finals tend to be cautious, low-scoring affairs where every play is magnified. The grueling conditions of a contest, 90 minutes of regulation play followed by 30 minutes of overtime in the all-too-common event of a tie, leave the players weak-legged and, apparently, quite often brain-dead. And the decisive penalty shoot-outs—two of the past four World Cups have ended with one—lend themselves to dramatic failures, given the high rate of success on penalty kicks. It is rare that even a goalkeeper's dramatic save is attributed to something other than a flawed shot.
What's more, national-team contests like the Euros or the World Cup are bedeviled by the age-old conflict between club and country. Glamour teams like Chelsea and Bayern Munich are often loath to release their top players for national-team training, lest it interfere with their club performance. That often leaves little time to weld the all-stars into a smoothly integrated team. This year, exhibit A of this conundrum was England, whose cobbled-together lineup astonishingly failed even to qualify for the Euros—despite (or perhaps because of) Britain's powerful clubs that dominate the continent in the Champions League.
Still, with a star-studded cast at the Euros (even absent England), there is every reason to believe a hero could emerge. Here are seven likely candidates:
Michael Ballack. The Chelsea midfielder returns to Germany to captain his home country's team, which the British betting agents last week gave the best odds to win this year. Known for his precision passing and powerful shot, the 31-year-old has adapted brilliantly to the frenetic pace of top-level British football.
Gianluigi Buffon. Considered the sport's best goalkeeper, Buffon had a masterly 453-minute scoreless streak that was crucial in securing Italy its fourth World Cup in 2006. A member of Juventus Turin—Italy's most successful club—he's one of the few leading stars who actually play in their own country.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Though he didn't enter the game until the 51st minute, the top-scoring Swedish striker scored both goals to power Inter Milan to its third consecutive Italian championship on May 18. At 195 centimeters tall, he's one of Europe's biggest shooting stars.
Miroslav Klose. The top scorer in the 2006 World Cup and a driving force behind Bayern Munich's record 21st Bundesliga title this year, he's no doubt looking for a repeat of his World Cup performance.
Andrea Pirlo. One of the game's great tacticians, this midfielder for AC Milan has a brilliant eye for surprising runs and passes. And he's just one of a stable of stars who should take Italy far.
Franck Rib é ry. The Frenchman helped power Bayern Munich to its Bundesliga title this year and was just voted the league's most valuable player by the readers of Germany's leading football magazine, Kicker. Returning to play for France, this midfielder is fast, tricky and a nightmare for any defender.
Cristiano Ronaldo. Playing for his home country, Portugal, Man U's top striker will get a chance to redeem his uncharacteristically weak performance against Chelsea at the Champions League final last month. Look for him to push tiny Portugal deep into the competition, as he did in the 2006 World Cup, when the Portuguese finished fourth.
Fernando Torres. In his debut season with Liverpool this year, the Spanish striker scored the most goals of any rookie player in the club's history. Lightning-fast and predatory, El Niño has established himself as one of the sport's greatest strikers and is a big reason that Spain is the tournament's No. 2 favorite.
But there are certain to be some surprises, too. "The great thing about this series is that there are no weak teams," says Rainer Holzschuh, the editor of Kicker. "From the first second, anyone can win." Besides the obvious big football powers Germany, Italy, France and Spain, Holzschuh says to watch out for the Dutch team and even the feisty Romanians this year.
To be sure, there is a history of success by unheralded teams whose lesser-known players aren't worn out from a long season competing in too many games in league and championship competitions. The last Euro title, after all, went to the previously unnoticed Greeks. And in 1992, little Denmark hadn't even qualified but was called in at the last minute—its players actually dragged off their vacation beaches—to replace Yugoslavia, which had been kicked out following U.N. sanctions. Well-rested, the Danes went straight to the finals, where they beat defending World Cup champion Germany, 2-0. It was one of the most remarkable moments in football history. And it wasn't even due to anyone's blunders.