EURO 2008 might have been the first tournament in history which could be enjoyed by everyone except professional footballers. How could they take in Spain's triumph without wanting to hide behind the sofa with embarrassment?

Put it this way: what's the great quality which comes to mind about this Spanish team? The ability to keep the ball. They can retain possession and when they pass the ball it actually goes to someone else wearing the same colour of shirt. And that simple mastery of the essence of football is all it takes to make them stand out from every other team on the scene.

They are distinctive because they actually do something that we should be able to take for granted from any professional footballer. It's like singling out a fireman for praise because he managed to direct the water on the flames.

The next game you watch won't involve Spain so try to count how often and how carelessly the ball is given away by both sets of players. Time and time again our leading managers preach about how our teams get punished for giving the ball away too cheaply. But so it goes on, a fault in our game which is borne from a weak command of technique, and a complacency that the ball will come back soon enough when someone else gives it away.

New world or European champions are held up as standard-bearers. They become the trend-setters, the team with the pioneering approach. That was especially true of Spain given the flair and panache of their sweep through Euro 2008. Everyone would like to win a tournament the way they did.

But the real lesson Scotland and every other also-ran can take from Euro 2008 was a much more subtle, sober one. These are the times when a manager like George Burley has to turn a deaf ear to calls to "do a Spain" and commit to an attacking, cavalier style. That would amount to no more than an exciting suicide.

"Every country has its own strengths and we have ours," said Burley last week, which was encouraging. He spoke about going for it, being fearless and so on as well but that was the telling quote because it suggested he isn't going to be turning up for work in a Flamenco costume or a matador's cape.

Scotland didn't beat France home and away, and give Italy a run for their money at Hampden, by playing like Spain. The campaign did not end in qualification but it provided the most sustained run for several years and it ended with an unmistakable sense of momentum towards the 2010 World Cup.

We don't deserve to get to South Africa if we are governed by a weather-vane approach to tactics. No-one could make any great claims about Scotland being great to watch in the Euro 2008 qualifying ties but many of the results were excellent and it was correctly hailed as a successful marriage of ability and approach.

That was playing to our strengths. There is no pace across the back four and that means having to play deep to protect the defence against the sort of lightning attacks which Holland brilliantly executed in their run to the quarter-finals.

Euro 2008 was a firecracker of a tournament which will live long in the memory. Much of the football was magnificent. But pragmatism ran through it too. When Spain lost David Villa to injury they switched from 4-4-2 to a single striker for the final. Turkey got all the way to the semi-finals with an approach like Scotland's: defensive, organised, opportunistic. When they finally opened up they had a great game against Germany and were packing their bags at the end of it.

There are nine European groups in the World Cup qualifiers and only the winners go straight to South Africa. Eight of the runners-up go into play-offs (and the remaining one misses out altogether). At least three points will have to be taken against Holland. It can be done. Russia went for their throat in the Euro quarter-final with a combination of aggression and pressing, which are within Scotland's scope, and exceptional pace, movement and finishing, which aren't.

Future generations of Scots are the ones who have a chance of learning from the Spanish. It's too late for Burley's team. They must try to reach the World Cup their own way.

Club chairman Henry McClelland was in his pomp after Annan were voted into the Scottish League on Thursday and he came out with some memorable quotes. When he began stressing how there was no chance of his well-run club becoming "another Gretna", though, he over-egged the pudding a bit.

"If a millionaire came in to try and invest in our club he would be shown the road out of Annan. We would be lynched if we sold the club to a millionaire."

Eh? Really? Have millionaires become pariahs all of a sudden? Gretna's problem wasn't the involvement of a millionaire per se, but their surrender of control to an individual who ran up debts and disappeared before paying them.

Surely not every millionaire out there is a snake oil salesman who has to be chased out of town?

Anyway, let's hope Annan enjoy life in the SFL. This idea they have about lynching directors is a welcome and refreshing one for Scottish football.