When I look at the final of Euro 2008, it makes me think about Harry Redknapp. Tomorrow evening the team who, at the beginning of the tournament, the Fink Tank declared as the most likely to win the trophy (Germany) will meet the team we said were second most likely to win it (Spain). Not a bad outcome.

Yet in one of those quirks of computer simulation, we make Spain favourites to win. There is a 55 per cent chance that they will conquer, with a 45 per cent chance it will be Germany.

Why does that make me think of Redknapp? A couple of seasons back he returned to a Portsmouth team who were in deep trouble as the season entered the endgame. It looked from Dr Ian Graham and Dr Henry Stott's work for the Fink Tank as if Portsmouth were going to be relegated to the Coca-Cola Championship. But soon they were out of the mire and they stayed up.

So is Redknapp a genius? Well, viewed from the moment he took over, it looks as if the answer is yes. Then I looked back at the statistics at the beginning of the campaign. Portsmouth's chances of going down had been very small. So an alternative explanation of what happened is that a team we predicted would stay up did well enough on average to do exactly that. But their wins and losses came in clumps, as they would do if distributed randomly. Redknapp had the good fortune to be in charge for the winning clump. As I say, it's an alternative way of looking at things.

The Redknapp example has made me stick to the answer Germany when asked who the Fink Tank thinks is most likely to win Euro 2008. There is, however, no escaping that tomorrow Spain have the better team. Germany are far better in attack, but Spain's margin of superiority in defence gives them a reasonable edge.

The Castrol Performance Index continues to shed light on proceedings. As you can see, David Villa looks set fair to be the player of the tournament, even though he is a doubt for the final with a right thigh-muscle injury, with Lukas Podolski, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Michael Ballack having exceptional tournaments. There has been a bit of a ruckus about Tranquilo Barnetta's high ranking. Yet, if you agree with the ratings, the odd surprising inclusion should be viewed as illuminating.

If you could do complicated pieces of multilayered maths in your head while watching every player in every game in Euro 2008, you would not need Castrol, its performance index or the Fink Tank. But you can't, can you?