Surprises of the Tournament:

3. France - how dreadful were France? They had probably the best squad in the competition, on paper, and certainly the best squad depth - as I illustrated in the tournament preview, there were so many great French players who didn't even make the squad who most other nations would have loved to have at their disposal. But they were terrible. Their highlight was a 0-0 draw with Romania in possibly the worst game of the tournament. They scored just one goal - Thierry Henry in the 4-1 crumbling to the Netherlands.

2. Turkey - the biggest over-achievers, not only did the Turks escape from a group they were tipped to finish fourth in, they also made it to the semi-finals and outplayed eventual finalists Germany. Granted, they benefited from a few giant dollops of luck - if Petr Cech had just caught that cross, as he would do 99% of the time, Turkey would have gone straight home - but they also suffered plenty of bad luck against them. They only had 3 fit outfield subs for the Germany game, missing key players like Nihat, Arda, Tuncay, and Emre.

1. The Netherlands - Going into the tournament, the Dutch were being regularly criticised by their own fans and journalists. Everyone knew they had good players, but nobody expected them to trounce both Italy and France so comprehensively. They instantly became every neutral's favourites. OK, so maybe it was just me that under-estimated them so much. I won't make that mistake again.

Top 3 Refereeing Controversies:

3. Austria's last-minute penalty v. Poland - English ref Howard Webb gave this decision which initially appeared to be a mystery - an Austrian was jostled to the ground as a free-kick was flighted into the box. The result? An equalising goal from 38-year old Ivica Vastic, effectively eliminating Poland from the competition. Was he right? It depends how rigidly you believe rules should be stuck to. By the letter of the law it was a foul and those fouls should be punished. But by being so strict, referees would have to give several penalties in every game, and that would fundamentally change the game of football. Indeed, Webb himself would have had to have given several penalties already in that game for the Polish defence to realise that they should be careful. So in my opinion he was not right - where were the other penalties in that game Mr Webb, or in the other matches you refereed? Instead, this penalty was like a gift given to the hosts, like a bottle of wine bought in thanks for a dinner party.