Spain‘s statistics in winning Euro 2024 are so historic and so startling that it’s easy to be overwhelmed and distracted by them. But in the end, Sunday’s victory over England in the final came down to what they do best and what has been an eternal question about a footballer: “how’s your first touch?”
La Roja are the only team to win six or more matches at a Euro, they have the oldest player to win one (Jesús Navas), the youngest ever to play, assist or score at one (Lamine Yamal), the national team and Spain’s clubs have won every major European final they’ve been in since 2001, they top-scored here, they beat every other European World Cup winner (England, Germany, France, Italy), no nation has ever won more Euros than Spain, they are Euro and Nations League holders at men’s and women’s level. Rodri has lost once in 81 club and country matches.
There are more stats, but that’s already a tsunami of them, and in any event, I want to draw your attention back to the things which, perpetually, make all this happen.
Look at Spain’s opening goal in Berlin. It was built from the back: England were either too scared to press high or unable to physically, meaning there was a free pass out from the back to Dani Carvajal. The man who, in June, became only the second guy ever to start six winning Champions League finals, did the special thing.
Full-backs used to be foot soldiers. Now they are hybrid wingers and match winners; they’re expected to be able to add pizzazz and all that jazz. Carvajal let the ball come on to him and then he produced a one-touch, outside of the boot flick. He was loosely boxed in by Jude Bellingham inside him and Luke Shaw down the line. If his flick failed, and his risk acceptance wasn’t matched by a technically exquisite touch, then Shaw (maybe the best distributor of the ball in England’s side) or Bellingham (touched by God’s magic) would take possession and Spain would be open and exposed.
Disaster could have followed. Instead, Carvajal’s first-time flick found Yamal on the run and in space. Disaster turned a full 180 degrees, and England were about to be gut-punched.
Late, late at night, deep in the heart of that strange, iconic, troubling Olympic Stadium, I had the fortune to sit down with Nico Williams. He was still beaming, while I was trying to keep the joy off my face. He told me about the moment of “not knowing how to celebrate my goal and trying 50 different rubbish things!”
What I loved, having eulogised Carvajal’s beautiful one-touch volley flick, was Williams instantly calculating that although Dani Olmo had dragged the faultless Kyle Walker “inside,” he still simply had to finish first time ” “or Walker would still have blocked me,” Nico emphasised to me.
A great goal, beautifully created. Pure, pure football, and the power of “one touch.”
Then came the late winner. Olmo was between the Iines, choosing not to push the ball wide left to Marc Cucurella, but channeling it forward to Mikel Oyarzabal instead.
Not that long ago, the captain of la Real had been out of the game for more than a year with injury. Back then, the lonely, fibre-testing, gritty road to recovery had left him looking stripped of a bit of pace, uncertain. Damaged. But what the Spain school taught Carvajal, taught Nico, and taught David Silva, Andres Iniesta, Xavi and Leo Messi, in their day, was that technique is king. Oyarzabal hits his pass to the overlapping Cucurella on the first touch (“primer toque“) and thus, like with Carvajal, the momentum is unstoppable. Minor gaps that England might have left suddenly mushroom into chasms.
An infinitely complicated sport briefly made simple.
Oyarzabal calculated that he might have left his pass too short, not far enough in front of Cucurella; he’d also calculated that the full back would have to hit it first time from the wing, and so Oyarzabal ran. He took a chance. His first touch allowed him the chance to run beyond Marc Guéhi and to score the winning goal in a European Championship.
What got Spain past England was their technical skills, plus brains that think differently, accept risk and put the flow of the ball on the line so that all opposition — defensive or offensive — can be cut open.
Before the match, Cucurella, who really hadn’t been sure of his place in Spain’s squad until José Gayà got injured for Valencia in late May, told me that it was a “present” to be starting in a Euro final. He said “I’m going to try to enjoy myself because if we all enjoy ourselves, then we’ll be that much closer to winning.” Two-and-a-half hours later, he was proved 100% right. A great cross, a great run from “Bigfoot” (who thanked David Moyes for having given him his debut all those years ago for la Real away to Levante), a great goal. Game over.
And they did all of this without Gavi (invited there as a guest during his knee injury rehab), without Pedri (brutally hacked out of this tournament by Toni Kroos in the quarterfinals) and without Rodri (surely the Ballon D’Or winner-elect) for the second half against a good and threatening England side.
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Spain touch down in Madrid with the Euro 2024 trophy
Spain’s Euro 2024 winning squad land back in Madrid to start the trophy celebrations.
Words don’t fail me. This was an epic triumph. This was good for football. Ignore the idea that this is a more “enjoyable” Spain side because it’s more vertical and direct than the football via which they won in 2010 and 2012. They have the same ideas: have the ball, press and win it back whenever it’s lost, attack, confuse the opponent, use superior tactics and technique. Play to win. At all times.
These things have not changed one iota over the 16 years since La Roja started their winning spree in 2008. Pay attention fans, journalists, coaches and players alike: these are the basic ingredients for greatness. Too many other nations, clubs, fan bases, media organisations still don’t understand this or place enough importance on it.
At the end, in this stadium where the mighty Jesse Owens ran like the wind to win four Gold Medals at the 1936 Olympics and, as a by-product, showed a hostile crowd that you can never, ever keep the human spirit down and subjugated, Nico Williams sprinted off. He was looking for his mum. He wanted to immediately give her his medal because, as he said, “I’m the champion of Europe, but she’s the champion of life.”
Spain play like no one else, and it brings joy. They speak like nobody else, in my opinion, using a vocabulary full of touchy-feely, human, warm, family-oriented words. In combination, those things have made La Roja the best in the business, again. And I swear there’s more to come. I told you, weeks ago, that Spain could and probably would win this. So now I’m telling you again: this is only the beginning. Viva Espana.
