It was impossible not to enjoy the show, from the first-round comebacks to David Trezeguet’s golden-goal blast in the final.

AMSTERDAM ù It had to end at some point. Pity. These three weeks in the Low Countries were special. Drama, some controversy, a little magic ù Euro 2000 had everything, and in the most festive of atmospheres.

Zinedine Zidane and Luis Figo, Slovenia’s 3-0 lead and Spain’s stoppage-time goals, Italy’s heartbreak ù the 11th European Championship figures to be remembered as one of the sport’s finest hours. Anything one might wish for, there it was.

Want drama? How about Spain, on the verge of elimination, scoring twice in stoppage time to overcome the Yugoslavs? How about England’s quarterfinal hopes falling apart with Phil Neville’s rash challenge? How about the 94th minute of the final?

Controversy? Was Abel Xavier’s hand-ball intentional? Magic? Well, Zidane and Figo and Zlatko Zahovic and Thierry Henry …

If we didn’t get the final we felt entitled to ù Who misses five of six penalties? ù we had a deserving champion in France, which exhibited such regal power everywhere on the field that, by Euro’s end, comparisons were being made with history’s great teams.

Zidane, of course, is a special case. His touch and vision, how he feeds on information that passes most players by, the class with which he carries himself ù he was, by far, the finest player in the competition. Pundits rushed to compare him first to Michel Platini, who had taken France to its previous Euro title, in 1984. Then, it was Johan Cruyff.

WIDE-OPEN SOCCER. There were great goals, from Henry and Figo and Alessandro Del Piero and so forth, and late goals ù five in stoppage time, three to win plus Sylvain Wiltord’s equalizer in the dying seconds of the final. The best teams, aside from Italy, played attacking soccer, with emphasis on improvisation and creativity. It wasn’t just France and the Netherlands and Portugal, but Slovenia, too, and Yugoslavia and Romania and Spain, and even Belgium, which could pursue the approach only so far given its shortage of skill.

The Dutch may have been the most entertaining team, at least over a stretch that included their victory over a French B team and their quarterfinal rout of Yugoslavia. Their inability to deal with Italy’s defensive pressure in the semifinals ù and their woeful approach to spot kicks ù cost them their expected chance to challenge the French when it mattered.

Teams that weren’t flexible, that didn’t employ players who could change roles at a moment’s notice, failed to measure up. England and Germany, both stiff, and all three Scandinavian teams failed to advance from the group stage.

The referees called the games tight, sometimes too much so, but it resulted in little cynicism. Even the Italians, whose defend-first policy won games but few neutral fans, excelled by playing superb, not brutal, defense.

There were late, decisive penalties called, not all of them deserved. Ronald De Boer did well to earn his brother, Frank, a PK to beat the Czechs, but Neville’s clumsy tackle received just treatment.

All of this added up to a series of outstanding matches, none better than Spain’s 4-3 comeback against Yugoslavia. It, too, featured a late penalty, converted by Gaizka Mendieta four minutes into stoppage time. That wasn’t enough to push Spain to the knockout phase, but Alfonso’s strike seconds later did the trick.

Almost as much fun was Slovenia-Yugoslavia. The Slovenes, led by Zlatko Zahovic, stunned their former countrymen with three goals, then surrendered three in six minutes for a draw.

True, there were few surprises in the group stage, and all the quarterfinals proceeded roughly as expected, but the semifinals ù both determined with penalty kicks ù and championship game, decided with David Trezeguet’s golden-goal blast, offered great drama.

TWO COUNTRIES. It was sometimes easy to forget that Euro 2000 had two hosts. If you wandered into Brussels without a clue, you’d never know ù unless you took notice of the Swedes or Portuguese or, yikes, the English ù there was a soccer tournament going on. Belgium’s disappointing display didn’t help: The divided country united for the Red Devils’ victory over Sweden, but losses to Italy and Turkey destroyed any spirit that had been built up.

The vibe was much heavier in Belgium than in the Netherlands, which isn’t really much of a surprise. The Belgian police’s no-tolerance policy sometimes entrapped law-abiding fans, but the semblance of rioting in and near Brussels’ Grand’Place and in Charleroi hardly added to the festivities.

Things were different in the Netherlands, where the party raged until Italy’s semifinal upset. On game days, nearly everybody was draped in orange, from their heads (cow hats, windmill hats) to their wooden-clogged toes. There were parades and bands and drinking and singing and dancing and (this being the Netherlands) pissing in the street.

It was impossible not to enjoy, unless, apparently, you work in red-lit windows. The Netherlands’ prostitutes ù a legal, respected job choice in these parts ù found that the influx of tourists didn’t mean extra guilders for working girls.

“It’s terrible,” said Tanya, a Russian window-girl in Amsterdam’s red-light district. “I worked extra because of [Euro 2000], but it is so slow.”

“In our club,” the madame of one Kerkrade brothel reported, “football players and ladies appear to compete against each other, and the men seem to prefer football players.”

The football played at Euro 2000 was that good.

It all ended prematurely, with that semifinal at the ArenA. Celebrations or Oranje success had been planned for Rotterdam and Amsterdam in the days following the final, but the buoyancy that had lifted the country died with the Netherlands’ chances.

Oh, well, just as well. Too much of a good thing, and all that.

by Soccer America senior editor Scott French