HALFWAY through watching Russia – so fluid and exciting against the Dutch – revert to type against Spain, the usual thought occurred to me. It always happens when a team I’m supporting finds itself unstuck and anodyne, its best players confined to the periphery, its defence trembling. I wonder how things can be turned around, whether it is motivation or tactics that are at fault. Groping in the dark, I yearn for someone touched by genius to show me the way. And inevitably, I ask myself: what would Steve McClaren have done?

The answer, usually, is: he would have stood under his umbrella looking pained, running his tongue around his expensive new teeth, and maybe ask Joleon Lescott to warm up. This is not the guidance I’m looking for – but in the game between those perennial underachievers, Spain and Russia, it had a certain semi-relevance. Because of course England might have been there instead of Russia, if you invest the word “if” with so much power that it ceases to have any real meaning. England failed to qualify because they were about the third best team in their group, so the argument should properly stop there. However, in two games against the Russkis – who displayed their usual schizophrenia, woeful then brilliant – England probably shaded it, so we might allow ourselves this little flight of fancy.

However, the problems then begin. If you placed England in Russia’s group, the suspicion has to be that they would not have got to the quarter-finals. Lose to Spain, draw with Sweden (we never beat the Swedes) and probably draw with Greece too. And thinking about that fictitious match, Sweden versus England – probably the decider for second place – you can feel death flapping around your head, like a bat. In a tournament characterised in the main by skill and verve, that would have been a match to suffocate even the most ardent lover of football. Two bunches of caution toying ineptly with one another, both knowing that the quarter-finals were a prize they did not deserve. I reckon England would have qualified for the quarter-finals only if placed in a group with Austria, Switzerland and Greece – the group of living death, and even then I suspect we would not have come top.

France, one of the poorest teams in the tournament, eased past England in March without expending too much effort, remember. England did squeak home against a Swiss second XI back in February, but this is thin gruel from which to mount a serious challenge against the likes of Spain, Holland and Germany. And we found Austria all too formidable when we played in Vienna in the qualifying stages for the 2006 World Cup. The more you think about it, the more depressing it gets, if you’re English. If you’re not English, feel free to laugh your head off.

It has been a paradoxically surprising tournament. Paradoxical because there has been drama and surprise at every turn and yet here we are, approaching the denouement a lot of pundits expected from day one. It has been enlivened by those three wild cards, Holland, Russia and Turkey. In the case of the first two, who provided some of the most entertaining moments of the competition, it proves the point that counter-attacking football is tactically a good idea only if you are in the lead or drawing. Holland, especially, lacked an alternative strategy; asked to pour forward in sustained force, they could not do so. Russia become demoralised too easily; when they go a goal down you can see the belief drain out of them. In a sense they are the polar opposite to England, who are only ever any threat when losing. England find it almost impossible to defend a one-goal lead; Russia find it almost impossible to recover from such a deficit.

As for Turkey, and their welcome injection of chutzpah and passion, it was nonetheless guileless enthusiasm and stupidity that saw them succumb to the inevitable Germans. I listened to Hansen and Co eviscerate the Germans with great glee after the semi-final – a mediocre team, a woeful performance, Turks desperately unlucky. Well, they can’t be that woeful, having reached the final – and you have to say, we’ve seen the same thing many times before. Germans winning games despite having a mediocre team – in almost every tournament for 16 years. The current side is probably a shade better than the one that reached the final of the 2002 World Cup, although I grant you, there’s not much in it. Carsten Jancker versus Bastian Schweinsteiger, two blunderbusses derided by the critics because they don’t have the finesse and elegance of Villa or Arshavin or Deco – but who nonetheless deliver the goods, usually at the crucial moment. Only rarely do the best teams win tournaments: the Argies in 1986, Brazil in 1970. The rest of the time tournaments are won by the Germans.