Soccer fans had to be happy with the Euro 2012 tournament. The level of play was excellent and we may be watching one of the greatest all-time dynasties in action. Spain’s Tiki-Taka style was on full display throughout the tournament. Any doubts about their lack of dominating play were put to rest with a 4-0 thrashing of a resurgent Italian side in the final. The Italians were playing excellent football, but they ran into a Spanish side that had even more talent and was ready to rise to the occasion.

Many think that Spanish dominance won’t end here. With an unprecedented three straight major tournament victories, Spain is now going for number four with the 2012 World Cup two years from now in Brazil, and many experts think they can do it. It would be a huge accomplishment, as it would be unprecedented for a European team to win a World Cup in South America. No South American team has ever won a World Cup in Europe, so location matters.

It will be interesting to see if Spain can break this streak as well. If they do, coupled with their recent string of success, there will be nobody arguing which is the best soccer dynasty ever. Spain also has one built-in advantage – the Spanish heritage of many South American. Of course that doesn’t apply to Brazil where Portuguese is spoken, but we should expect many Spanish-speaking South Americans rooting for Spain as their number two choice following their home country. This could galvanize the Spanish side and give them the extra motivation needed to pull off this accomplishment.

We can expect to see the fruits of this recent winning streak everywhere. Memorabilia and Spanish jerseys are flying of the shelves all over the world. Readers can join in and get huge discounts on soccer merchandise. We can expect Spanish fans to invade Brazil two year from now, but how many fans from South America will also be wearing Spanish jerseys? That will be very interesting to watch. If Spain can turn their Brazilian adventure into a mini-home crowd advantage, they might be unbeatable.

Of course there will be many other national teams ready to take on the mighty Spain. The home Brazilian side will be geared up to win the World Cup in their home country. Argentina is always a force on the word stage as well, and all of the South American teams will have some advantage.

As for the other European countries, we can always expect several of them to emerge as real threats. Germany always looks strong, and despite their continued frustrations against Italy in major tournaments, you can’t ever count them out. As for the Italians, they showed that they are resurgent again, and Mario Balotelli is the ultimate wild card. He’s only 21 years old now, and the sky is the limit with his talent. If he matures and works harder after the embarrassing loss against Spain, then the Italian side can be a real threat as well.

It’s been fun to see the renewed interest in these tournaments since ESPN started making the World Cup and the Euro Cup featured programming, so expect plenty of hype and interest as we watch Spain go for the four-peat.

Some were calling Spain a dynasty, while Italy was facing its regular match-fixing scandal. The scene was set for an epic battle between the last two winners of the World Cup, and Italy rose to the occasion with a 1-1 draw with mighty Spain.

It was an interesting match to watch, as Italy seems to be playing a more aggressive style under Cesare Prandelli. Fans love to hate the Italian side, but many acknowledged that Italy played well against Spain.

Italy has a long history of destructive soccer, a tradition of delaying tactics and primitive kick-and-rush counterattacks. One need only think of Marco Materazzi’s (nicknames “the animal”) goading of Zinedine Zidane in the 2006 World Cup Final.

The fact that this Italian side drew against the World and European champions–famous for the “tiki-taka” passing game that most Spanish players and coaches embrace–may be considered a defeat for soccer purists.

However, there are many subplots to this story.

In a departure from tradition, this Italian squad was far from their caricature of a defense-obsessed bunch of tricksters and instead worried about its own game; it played Spain fairly and squarely.

Despite relatively inferior players, Italy never allowed Spain’s midfielders to just pass the ball to each other and dominate possession as they tend to.

Spanish fans, never fond of the Italian brand of soccer, were impressed.

“A tie was the fair result,” Antonio Díaz, a Madrid policeman told us.

Is this the dawn of a new, viewer-friendly Italy?

We’ll see what happens against Croatia and Ireland, but the aggressive style will likely remain in place. The question is whether the Italians will go into lock-down mode after taking a lead. It was pretty shocking to see a goal scored so quickly by Spain after Italy scored, though we are dealing with the excellent Spanish team here.