Euro2008: Basel Serves Up A Thriller

Wednesday's semi-final at St Jakob-Park was a stone-cold classic. Let's start by applauding Turkey. I didn't have particularly high expectations of Fatih Terim's team prior to the start of the tournament, but they enriched the competition with three moments of pure footballing theatre. Their late goals against Switzerland, Czech Republic and Croatia were the type that haul you off the sofa with such spontaneous abandon that the popcorn and beer ends up all over the missus.

They almost did it again in the semi-final against the Germans, delivering a performance to warm the soul. So rich in passion, endeavour and belief - it made a nonsense of the catalogue of injury and suspensions that so limited the options of Terim. Greece might have given us the ultimate footballing fairytale by winning Euro 2004, but they won all their knockout games 1-0 with a style of play that asphyxiated opponents.

While Turkey have fallen short of matching Greece's achievement, for my money they have given us so much more than Otto Rehhagel's outfit. For one brief moment, it looked as though lightning would strike for a fourth time when Semih Senturk equalised so late on after Miroslav Klose's header appeared to have sealed a final berth for the pre-match favourites. That Phillip Lahm delivered Turkey a most cruel taste of their own medicine can in no way detract from what the men from the far corner of Europe have given us here in Switzerland. People talk about a lack of passion from over-paid players who no longer show enough pride in the national shirt. Show me a Turk who could be accused of that?

And what of the Germans? Joachim Loew's team were poor in the group stage, largely excellent against Portugal in their quarter-final victory and, in many ways, fortunate against Turkey.