"Olazabal did do some interesting structural things -- such as choosing Poulter as a wild card," says Tu. "Poulter has a brilliant Ryder Cup record and his infectious attitude will only ever amplify the belief in others."

Tu highlighted the way in which Martin Kaymer put a disappointing season behind him to emerge as the effective match-winner, as the German coolly sank a pressurized putt on the 18th to beat Steve Stricker and ensure that Europe retained the Ryder Cup.

"Teams play for a leader," says Tu. "The worst leader of Europe in recent times was 2008 captain Nick Faldo, who told Lee Westwood in the middle of a round that he would not be playing the next day.

"Compare that to Olazabal's management of Kaymer, who was not in great form coming into the tournament and who didn't play on the Saturday either.

"Somehow, Olazabal managed to turn a potential weakness into a positive, by stressing to Kaymer that his absence on Saturday was a sacrifice for the team's greater good.

"This would have liberated Kaymer -- and just look at the way both he and Stricker handled the pressure in their clash late on.

"A lot of small things combined to tip Europe into the belief they could win and as the scores came through, their momentum became unstoppable.

"This momentum helped Kaymer -- and so did the Seve influence, as he was playing with something beyond himself. Stricker saw the increasing blue on the scoreboard and began to feel the pressure.

"It's a fine line between that pressure either being turned into a positive or negative, but Stricker knew everyone was relying on him -- which became pretty tough pressure -- and the game just ran away from him."

Stricker's misery was compounded by the fact he was the only player among the two dozen involved who failed to win a point all week -- a statistic that history will not look kindly upon as Americans try to understand how they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Wall Street Journal is already debating this, with the newspaper pointing an accusatory finger at the decision by U.S. captain Davis Love III to select Stricker as one of his four wild cards.

"The better questions to ask might be how teams from Europe consistently pull rabbits out of their hats at these Ryder Cups. Europe has now won two in a row, five of the past six and seven of the past nine," the paper wrote on Monday.

"If it were just this U.S. team that lost when on paper it seemed to have the better players, the blame might be easier to assign. But that's not the case."

For Tu, the answer is simple.

"The Europeans were playing for each other, for their leaders and for a purpose -- Seve."