Portugal midfielders training (Reuters)Early Doors has watched with interest as the contingent of football fans decrying Spain as boring to watch has re-emerged during Euro 2012.
To be fair, it is probably the world and European champions who are to blame for France's insipid performance against them in the quarter-finals. Watching those laser-guided through balls from David Silva and Cesc Fabregas in the group stage was just torture. The clinic of technique and purpose put on by them and Italy during their Group C opener was the footballing equivalent of chopped liver.
They may be the team with the best ever chance of becoming the first to win three major tournaments in a row, but they are not exactly England, are they? More's the pity.
ED can't help but wonder, were the same people were around in the 1960s, if they would have complained about the release of yet another Beatles single.
Spain's Andres Iniesta was typically magnanimous when responding to the charge that he and his team-mates' tiki-taka is boring to watch.
"Not everyone likes the same things and not everyone agrees on everything," said the Barcelona midfielder. "It's the diversity of opinion that makes [football] so special.
"We have our own style, which has brought us success and given us two trophies. But all opinions are valid, and I respect them.
"The truth is that when you have a team that always attacks, and you attack against closed defences that leave no space, of course it's not as attractive as an open match between two teams that want to win.
"But this is the style that has brought us success and it's the style that we can identify with. Don't forget, a few years back, this style changed the history of Spain forever, and I think that's enough."
Spain are unlikely to be unduly worried about facing a team lacking attacking ambition when they take on Portugal in their semi-final in Donetsk this evening.
While the defending champions' midfield trio of Xavi Hernandez, Xabi Alonso and Sergio Busquets have been hogging the ball as though as though it was the last one in eastern Europe, Portugal's own central triumvirate of Miguel Veloso, Raul Meireles and Joao Moutinho have been acting as a three-man slingshot, repeatedly seeking to send Cristiano Ronaldo hurtling forward.
Ronaldo has already had a whopping 30 shots on goal in this tournament, with four hitting the woodwork. Both figures are already records at a European Championship. It speaks volumes for the Ballon d'Or runner-up that, while Spain are favourites with the bookies to win the semi at evens, Ronaldo is 9/4 second favourite to win the Golden Boot.
Whilst the Real Madrid superstar - one of eight players on the Bernabeu payroll expected to start this evening - has a highly productive attacking cohort in Nani, in the main Portugal rely on that midfield pivot to release him.
Portugal are probably the only team in the competition equipped with a midfield that can try and take Spain's own central unit toe-to-toe. As such, the vast majority of the action at the Donbass Arena tonight could take place in the centre circle.
With Eusebio being the glorious exception, Portugal have historically been a nation full to burst with brilliant attacking midfielders but with a glaring lack of top-class decent strikers. This year, however, that may not matter.
- - -
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I was reckless and deserved every punishment I received. Money comes and goes, it's not important to me. Losing the captaincy and missing 12 games, is what really hurts. I was stupid and that's what happens when you do dumb things. I am confident I'll bounce back. Cannot wait." - Joey Barton reacts on Twitter after he was fined £500,000 and stripped of the QPR captaincy following his red card and subsequent rampage on the final day of last season.
FOREIGN VIEW: "I don't know anything of Drogba. If he's here he's come on holiday or for something personal. It's nothing to do with Barcelona." - Barcelona president Sandro Rosell denies the fanciful story that Didier Drogba is moving to the Nou Camp rather than Shanghai Shenhua.
COMING UP: Follow live coverage of the first Euro 2012 semi-final, Portugal v Spain, at 7:45pm. Before that, Jim White will be filing his latest dispatch from Poland and Ukraine.