On Friday night, I went to Khinkali, the Georgian restaurant on Pushkin Boulevard that has become a regular haunt over the past week in Donetsk. Every other day, where I went for lunch or for dinner, it's been almost full. On Friday there were only four tables occupied in the courtyard out the back. The boom is over, the tournament has moved on, and life in Donetsk returns to normal.
In the final week of tournaments somebody always makes the joke about the poignancy of the media centre coming down, the canvas being folded up, the steel poles retracted, the carpeted boards stacked on flat-back lorries, everything being taken on to a big wedding or trade fair or whatever else requires enormous bland tents. Everybody laughs because there is something ridiculous about the functionality of it all, and yet it is a sad moment.
It's hard to imagine when Donetsk will ever again be the centre of such international attention, when Carlos Bianchi will again protrude at odd angles from a café seat as he reads l'Equipe, when Sara Carbonero will again sit in the friends and family section, when Angela Merkel will again refuse to visit. And the lack of hotels aside, it's been a fine host.
I'm filing this from the station at Kyiv having taken the night train from Donetsk. Having blundered about in a sweaty daze for several minutes I finally found a toilet to get washed in and now I'm having coffee in a vast bistro with mock-marble floors, chandeliers and paintings of heavy industry on the walls. The room echoes to train announcements and the chirps of the dozens of sparrows who seemingly live in the roof. It feels a fittingly Soviet place - kitsch-ly baroque and hopelessly impractical - to bring these diaries to an end.
On a human level the tournament has succeeded; exhausting as its been, the friendliness and warmth of both nations has made the experience enjoyable, the stadiums have been excellent and the football pretty good. You just wonder why Uefa ever agreed to a tournament that placed such a logistical strain on everybody.
So, the final. You can't deny that Italy deserve to be there - they were superb against Germany - and yet there is a slight twinge of disappointment that, yet again at a major tournament, the two sides who you instinctively feel are the best won't meet in the final. Purely in terms of the clash of styles I was looking forward to seeing Spain play Germany: while Germany seem to have captured the public's imagination with their style of play, I was always a little doubtful about their transition from reactivity at the World Cup to proactivity here.
That Jogi Low had doubts of his own about the ability of Lukas Podolski and Thomas Muller when they don't have space in front of them was evident in his team selection against Greece. Their other problem, which only really emerged in the group stage and which ultimately proved decisive, is that Sami Khedira has become a much more rounded player since his move to Real Madrid. Previously he sat and Bastian Schweinsteiger could surge forward; now they both want to press on and they've ended up like a German Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard.
They're both fine players but the balance and coordination isn't right and they ended up leaving space in front of the back four.
Recommended Bet
Spain won't allow Italy the space they enjoyed against Germany and although Italy tested Spain in that opening group game I still think, as I suggested two days ago, that Spain will again win 1-0 or 2-0. Backing Mario Balotelli to be top goalscorer at 2.767/4 seems a reasonable hedge given it would require Xabi Alonso, Cesc Fabregas or Fernando Torres to score two for him not to take at least a share of the award, while the likely caginess of the game may make it worth backing the draw at half-time at 2.021/1.