If the old adage that you can have too much of a good thing is true, then Euro 2000 was surely much too much. With an unusually small number of exceptions, its matches proved rich in excitement and outstanding quality.

Right from the word go, we had everything - dazzling team and individual performances, plenty of goals and last minute heroics. And that wasn't all, as comedy and heartbreak also made their theatrical presence felt.

Before the opening match, many people would perhaps have thought of Belgian keeper Filip de Wilde as a solid if slightly unexciting player. But there's more to him than that - he also has a natural eye for slapstick, and wasted no time in proving it.

De Wilde gifted Sweden a route back into the tournament's opening match when, with the co-hosts leading 2-0, he trod on the ball to allow Johan Mjallby a simple goal. Against Turkey, he launched himself into the air like a Kung Fu enthusiast to flatten Arif Erdem and earn a red card.

But if de Wilde provided some maverick moments, England proved grimly predictable. Tired football and outdated tactics, coupled with the depressing sight of town centre trouble from the lunatic fringe, made sobering viewing.

The desperate lack of guile in Kevin Keegan's side contrasted starkly with group opponents Portugal, who waltzed to the semi-finals in real style before departing amid controversy, and Romania, who made and missed plenty of chances before Philip Neville's untimely intervention.

Only the strife-ridden Germans managed to look as poor, losing 1-0 to a Shearer strike as they crashed out in an atmosphere of bitchy resentment, with shrinking violet Lothar Matthaeus the subject of much of the verbal carnage.

Holland took a while to hit their stride, but when they did the results were electrifying - except for from the spot. Their 6-1 win over Yugoslavia was little short of perfect, while their rate of failure from the spot against a determinedly defensive Italy in the semis was plain baffling.

In contrast, plain mad would be an apt description of Spain's game against the Yugoslavs - surely the best match of Euro 2000.

The Spaniards, 3-2 down and heading out of yet another tournament in its early stages, picked themselves up to score twice in injury time, sending Norway crashing out and a disbelieving John Motson into what sounded like Esperanto.

Winners France, and the peerless Zinedine Zidane, didn't always reach the top of their game en route to the final - or in it - but the air of self-belief that can only come from sublime skill never failed to make itself apparent.

Zidane, Figo, Davids, Desailly, Kluivert - the list of outstanding contributors goes on, and is augmented by some unexpected heroes. No Aston Villa fan could surely have expected Savo Milosevic to join Kluivert as top scorer with five goals, while Slovenia's Zlatko Zahovic shone as his country announced themselves in vibrant, attacking style.

In short, then, a magnetically watchable three weeks in which the game was seen at its best on a luxuriously frequent basis.