Cycling: Newcomer Sagan sparkles

Peter Sagan of Slovakia marked his debut in the Tour de France by winning the first stage of this year's race in Seraing Sunday.Read More

Fans gather ahead of Euro final

Fan parks in Spain and Italy start to fill up ahead of Sunday's Euro 2012 final in Kiev, Ukraine.Read More

Spain v Italy – live!

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Four years and nine days ago, at the Ernst-Happel-Stadion in Vienna, Cesc Fabregas whistled a penalty past Gianluigi Buffon's lugs, and Spain started to believe. The spot kick put Spain into the semi finals of Euro 2008, securing victory over bogey side Italy in a major tournament for the first time since their first-ever meeting, at the 1920 Olympics. The rest is recent history, with Spain going on to win Euro 2008, then following it up by scooping the World Cup.

Today, one way or another, Spain's journey comes full circle. If they see off Italy again, the quest is complete: they become the first country to retain the European Championship, and the first to win three major international tournaments on the bounce. But if they don't - and Italy land their second European Championship title, their first since 1968 - the story finishes with a bittersweet symmetry, an almost perfect narrative arc.

There's also a delightful role-reversal riff being played out. Spain, for years haphazard modernists, are all about control these days. Meanwhile, as they've been honing tiki-takanaccio almost to absurd perfection, the Italians, so long the masters of the dark arts of defence, have taken to sashaying around upfield in the swashbuckling style, individualists to the fore. Attackinaccio? It's all very strange, whatever it is. It's Bizarro Football.

There's one other factor to be taken into consideration, and it could have an influence on tonight's match. There's an increasing sense that while Spain are respected for their brilliance, they're rarely loved. Do they fancy winning a few hearts and minds as well as the silverware? No reason why they should care what anyone else thinks, of course - the pots are reward enough - but perhaps they fancy a few hugs, kisses and admiring glances, too. If all their talent comes out accordingly with attacking intent, we could be about to witness a signature performance for the ages - the one and only thing their pot-gathering reign is lacking.

So, basically, I'm looking for a few reasons to believe this could become a stone-cold classic. Now can you blame anyone for that?

Kick off: 7.45pm BST, 9.45pm EEST (local time in Kyiv).

History: It's on Italy's side. They might have been knocked out of Euro 2008 by Spain, but it was only after a penalty shootout, so the official records still show that the Spanish have only registered one victory in a major finals over the Azzurri: their first-ever meeting at the 1920 Olympics. Italy responded to that loss by thrashing Spain 7-1 at the 1928 Games. They then knocked Spain out of the 1934 World Cup, the legendary Inter striker Giuseppe Meazza scoring the winner in a quarter-final replay. They beat Spain 1-0 in the Euro 88 group stages, Gianluca Vialli the scorer. And two-goal Roberto Baggio did for them in the quarter finals of the 1994 World Cup in Boston, with a little help from Julio Salinas. Not only that, when lots were drawn to decide whether Spain or Turkey would go to the 1958 World Cup, a small blindfolded boy selected the Turks. The lad was, needless to say, Italian. That victory at Euro 2008 was a load off, that's for sure.

More recent history: The well-matched 1-1 draw in the groups, three weeks ago to the day. Read More

Villas-Boas poised to take Spurs reins

• Portuguese to sign three-year contract at White Hart Lane
• Hurried reshaping of Spurs squad expected to follow

Tottenham Hotspur expect to unveil André Villas-Boas as their manager this week and his appointment is set to spark a frenzied period of transfer activity at White Hart Lane in preparation for the new Premier League season.

Negotiations are ongoing with Villas‑Boas and his representative but are considered close to resolution. The Portuguese is now contractually free to take up the reins at another English club following his dismissal as Chelsea manager in March. It is anticipated the 34-year-old will sign a three-year contract at Spurs and could be confirmed in position on Tuesday.

Villas-Boas's backroom team will include José Mario Rocha and Daniel Sousato, key members of his staff during his glittering season at Porto and his ill‑fated stint at Stamford Bridge, following the departures of Kevin Bond and Joe Jordan from the coaching team at Tottenham last week. The manager will arrive keen to re-establish his reputation having been dismissed by Chelsea nine months into a three-year deal with the team outside the Champions League places and the manager having met resistance in the dressing room for the changes he was attempting to impose.

A busy summer reshaping the squad left by Harry Redknapp awaits. Villas-Boas is expected to be followed to the club by Gylfi Sigurdsson, the goalscoring Icelandic midfielder who impressed while on loan at Swansea City for the second half of last season, from Hoffenheim for £8m. The manager also hopes to conclude deals for the Internacional midfielder Oscar dos Santos Emboaba Junior, 20, and the Belgium defender Jan Vertonghen, at around £9.5m, despite the player still negotiating the terms of his release from Ajax.

Those deals will reflect the considerable financial backing to be provided by the chairman, Daniel Levy, to ensure Spurs remain challengers next season. The club have been buoyed by Gareth Bale signing a new four-year contract worth £70,000 a week – an indication in itself that the dressing room are behind Villas-Boas's appointment – though it remains to be seen whether a deal with Manchester City for Emmanuel Adebayor can be thrashed out given the Togo forward's wage demands. He earns £170,000 a week at the Etihad Stadium, an amount Spurs cannot match.

The England striker Jermain Defoe, who endured something of a bit-part role with the club last season, will be retained but Giovanni dos Santos is due to join Malaga and Spurs are braced for a transfer request from Luka Modric, who is agitating for Champions League football, though they will resist selling the Croatia midfielder to another Premier League team. Manchester United and Chelsea have been interested and Real Madrid are also admirers. Read More

Euro 2012: Spain and Italy leaders risk embarrassment over Belarus president

Italy has 'no plans' for contact with Alexander Lukashenko during football match amid row over Belarus human rights record

They have overlooked criticism of Ukraine's human rights record to attend the final of the European football championships in Kiev tonight, but the prime ministers of Italy and Spain could see their visit further complicated by the presence at the stadium of Alexander Lukashenko, the pariah president of Belarus.

Italy's Mario Monti and Mariano Rajoy of Spain are flying in to watch the match after leaders, including David Cameron, said they would not attend the tournament in protest at the jailing of former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko for seven years for abuse of office.

Many observers consider the conviction to be politically motivated.

A spokesman for the Italian government said there was no formal EU position on whether to attend games, and that Monti was "going to support Italy just as the Spanish prime minister is going to support Spain, and just as Angela Merkel would have gone had Germany made the final".

The two leaders may risk embarrassment if they rub shoulders with Lukashenko, who has been criticised for his human rights record, is subject to EU and US sanctions, and has been invited to the game by the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych.

The Italian government official said "no contact was planned" between Monti and Lukashenko.

Lukashenko often attends meetings with world leaders with his eight-year old son Nikolai, who he is grooming as his successor. Attending a recent meeting between his father and the Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, Nicolai appeared to be wearing a gun under his jacket.

Femen, the Ukrainian female protest group which holds topless demonstrations, has protested against Lukashenko's visit outside Kiev's Olympic stadium, dressed in ski masks and wielding batons to imitate Belarus security officers.

In Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko's daughter has said her mother will be watching the final on television from the hospital where she is being held in custody. Tymoshenko would not support either team "but hopes to see a good game", her daughter Eugenia told the Italian news agency Ansa.

But she warned that Europe's politicians should not stop criticising Ukraine's democratic track record. "Politicians must put further pressure on the Ianukovich regime, even if Italy-Spain is only sport," she said.

A Ukrainian government spokesman said it was grateful to Italy and Spain for "not mixing football and politics". Read More

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Euro 2012: Cesare Prandelli restores sense of pride and power to Italy

In contract to his predecessors, Prandelli has brought a personal touch to the Italian squad and the transformation has been stark

Back home they had been christened l'Italia del sorriso some time ago, though the watching world is only just cottoning on as to why. Cesare Prandelli's Azzurri can claim the European Championship against Spain on Sunday night and, if they do so, they will have restored their national team's reputation in the process. Given the traumas endured two years ago, an Italy bursting with smiles feels wonderfully appropriate.

Theirs has been a renaissance at these finals, the story made all the more romantic when placed in the context of the desperate underachievement in a pathetic defence of the World Cup in South Africa in 2010. Italy finished bottom of their group, behind Slovakia, Paraguay and New Zealand, with Marcello Lippi's side humiliated and the nation outraged. Prandelli had agreed to take up the reins prior to the finals but effectively walked into a messy divorce with all faith in the national team eroded. Gianluigi Buffon, infamously, had expressed doubt as to whether Italy would even reach Euro 2012, yet this is now a team unbeaten in 15 competitive matches and thrust into a ninth major final.

The transformation feels staggering and reflects directly upon Prandelli. The 54-year-old had gleaned three Serie A titles, a European Cup-Winners' Cup and a European Cup – the Heysel final against Liverpool – with Juventus as a midfield artisan whose diligence freed up Michel Platini to play. He hardly came highly decorated as a manager, his nomadic career has yielded a Serie B title with Verona in 1999 and, at its height, five successful years at Fiorentina. Yet he was a figure to contrast markedly with his predecessors. Where Lippi was the old-school disciplinarian, Prandelli is charming. He laughs and jokes through his public briefings, shares a beer in celebration back at Krakow's Casa Azzurri with all and sundry and is forever claiming to be calm even ahead of the most daunting of occasions.

He was the right man to restore the national team's image off the pitch and build bridges with a disillusioned public, with his initial task a PR exercise. "I realised the first aim was not the results," he said. "I didn't know when, or if, we would start winning again but I knew the first thing I had to do was bring the national team closer to the people of Italy again."

There were gestures, from squad visits to a prison in Florence to training at Rizziconi in Calabria, on land confiscated from the local mafia, the 'Ndrangheta. If the country was moving on from past controversies then so too was their national team. For those on the outside looking in, it struck the right tone and offered a sense of the required fresh start.

The contrasts with his predecessors did not end there. Where Lippi and Roberto Donadoni had stuck with tradition and authoritatively expressed their demands through their captains, whether it was via Fabio Cannavaro or Buffon, Prandelli has been more hands on and has made a point of speaking to each of his players individually. That might be considered basic but within the Italian set-up it felt exceptional. He has been more psychologist than manager at times, an approach that has paid dividends, eking the best out of members of his squad – Mario Balotelli and Antonio Cassano principal among them – others doubted could be integrated at this level.

He has become a footballing father figure for Balotelli, spending hours speaking with the Manchester City striker and forever stressing the role he deems must be undertaken on the pitch for the good of the team. The forward's substitution in the opening two games and relegation to the bench against Ireland suggested dissatisfaction but the 21-year-old, rather than sulk, has reacted positively. He, like others, needed reminding both of his qualities and his requirements. His display against the Germans was a reward.

If there is a heavy reliance upon players from Juventus – seven of the squad went through last season unbeaten in claiming Serie A – then all members of this party have been made to believe they can be pivotal. There have been 25 different starting line-ups and four systems over Prandelli's two years in charge and he came into this tournament, albeit on the back of some dismal friendly results, insisting selection would be determined by performances in training. Everyone had a chance of featuring, a reality that has spurred on the likes of the inexperienced Alessandro Diamanti, who now feels that he "belongs".

They all seem to enjoy playing in this team. Prandelli is a reformist, insisting upon a fluid, attacking mind-set to the extent it will be intriguing to monitor the transition of possession against Spain, with both teams revelling on the ball. There is no Luca Toni-type leading the Italian line and no Gennaro Gattuso cloned midfield snarlers intent on niggly disruption of their opponents' rhythm. Instead, there is confidence in their own ability to pass and create. This team imposes its own style on occasions, rather than reacting to their rivals' tactics.

"We started off with the idea of involving the players in how we would play the game," Prandelli said. "Many of them felt the time had come to play, I won't say a 'different type' of game because in football there is nothing new, but something else. I have plenty of quality midfielders so we play to our strengths. With these players, that means a much more attacking game."

This squad retains four members of the party that claimed the World Cup in 2006 but there are others – from Riccardo Montolivo to Claudio Marchisio – who had been deemed disasters at the tournament two years ago. They are flourishing at present with the faith of the management bringing the best out of their form. Andrea Pirlo may conduct the collective on the turf but the team's strength is in its unity. "When we started on this journey we were convinced we could become a 'team'," the coach said. "The players have bought into our ideas and they see that our philosophy allows them to express their quality."

All of it is overseen with Prandelli's sense of perspective, not least in the lengthy overnight pilgrimages made on foot to churches in Poland after the team's progress in the finals. Italy's domestic game is gripped by match-fixing scandals but there is respect for and faith in the man in charge of the national team. People remember that in the late summer of 2004 he left Roma just two months into his role to be with his wife, Manuela, who was suffering from breast cancer. That decision was greeted with surprise as well as sympathy, – his wife passed away in 2007 after an illness that had dragged for eight years – prompting him to wonder how he had been expected to react. "But then football is afraid of normality," he said.

It is perhaps because Italy's support can consider the coach grounded that he arrived in Krakow carried on a wave of affection and sends his team out in Kiev with the country pinching itself to be in this position. The team is transformed, pleasing on the eye and joyous at its progress. L'Italia del sorriso has never felt more appropriate. Read More