Football is a simple game.
Eleven men kicking a bag of wind around a field with the aim of depositing it in one of two receptacles at either end of it more often than another 11 men is hardly the stuff of rocket science.
True, it requires organisation, discipline and a degree of skill to do it successfully and consistently at the highest level, but the same basic principles apply.
That, however, appears too often to be forgotten as the stars of the modern game go about their business weighed down by wallets containing the equivalent of the gross national product of a small country in a world plagued by
badly-driven Ferraris, comical hairstyles, vacuous hangers-on and more bling than you could shake a stick at.
There was much debate during the Euro 2004 finals about the relative merits of competing multi-million superstars, diamond formations - midfield systems rather than earrings, but both could apply equally - and lone strikers, with coaches living and dying by their decisions as Inaki Saez, Giovanni Trapattoni, Rudi Voller and Dick Advocaat all falling upon their swords within days of elimination after seeing their best-laid plans turn to dust.
England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson and his captain David Beckham were questioned about their respective futures in the wake of the penalty shoot-out defeat by the hosts, with Beckham in particular coming up with a series of excuses for his own disappointing form and latest bout of spot-kick misery.
But as the post-mortem continued with the prospect of hours and hours of analysis still to come, the Henri Delaunay trophy was being transported to Athens, one of the most unlikely of the possible destinations, with the awful
truth starting to dawn.
Greece won the right to call themselves the champions of Europe because when it mattered, they stood firm and scored more goals than their opponents.
It sounds simplistic, but that was the top and bottom of it; they did not score many goals, but they conceded fewer and that was enough to see them eclipse Portugal twice, France and the Czech Republic, three of the pre-tournament favourites.
Coach Otto Rehhagel has since been hailed as a genius, his players, predictably, as Greek gods, and while they all deserve the accolades they have received since Sunday night's remarkable silver goal victory over the hosts and more, their success was not based on a major breakthrough in astro-physics.
German Rehhagel knew he had no superstars in his squad - full-back Georgios Seitaridis has since found himself in demand, former Sheffield United central defender Traianos Dellas was a tower of strength and skipper Theo Zagorakis,
remembered fondly by Leicester City fans, was named Player of the Tournament - but what he had was a group of men who were comfortable with what they were good at and who had been moulded into a unit which was capable of performing to a level that exceeded the individual qualities of its constituent parts.
But perhaps more, he managed to foster a belief that, even if they were rank outsiders, they would give anyone a bloody good game and not surrender without a fight.
Rehhagel has been feted in recent days as a footballing Einstein who has managed to pull off the impossible, an achievement which has cast him in the role of the potential saviour for his native country, but was his formula for
success - putting round pegs in round holes and getting them to do as they were told - all that remarkable?
Greece's triumph was astonishing because of their track record - they had not won a single game at a major tournament before the first of their two victories over Portugal - and the fact that they managed to succeed where the supposed European powers failed will go down in their country's sporting legend.
Portugal boss Luiz Felipe Scolari came closest to realising his dream after ditching five of the men who started the first game; Eriksson discovered that Wayne Rooney is world-class and that Beckham is fallible; Advocaat, like so many of his predecessors, was reminded that talent alone is not enough; Voller...well, don't even go there.
But what lessons can the vanquished learn from the Greeks?
Perhaps they would all do well to remember that 11 men, even 11 men who do not possess the most sublime of skills or the biggest of pay packets or the highest of profiles, can succeed provided that they remember the first thing they were ever taught about football: the winner is the team which scores more goals than the other.
Simple.
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