Spain beat England 2-1 in the Euro 2024 final in Berlin on Sunday to win its fourth European Championship title. Spain has thus overtaken Germany, who has won three European titles.
Nico Williams and Mikel Oyarzabal scored either side of Cole Palmer’s equalizer to secure the victory for Spain. Spain defeated Italy, Germany, France and England in the same tournament and deservedly won the title.
However, it was so near yet so far for England yet again and we will take a look at a couple of reasons why Spain scored over the Three Lions in the final:
Giving More Importance to Form Than Reputation
It always pays to pick the team on form rather than on reputation and England learned that lesson the hard way. Despite scoring three goals in the tournament, Harry Kane had done precious little otherwise and probably did not deserve to be in the starting XI in the final.
Starting with a younger and livelier Ollie Watkins, who had impressed during his brief spells as a substitute, made more sense. Gareth Southgate did replace Kane with Watkins after 60 minutes, but to start with somebody just for the sake of his reputation made little sense. Watkins did more in the 30-odd minutes than Kane had done in the previous 60. Even Phil Foden and Jude Bellingham, the two superstars of Premier League and La Liga, respectively, failed to live up to the expectations.
Palmer did more than Foden in the tournament despite not starting in any of the matches. He probably did more than Bellingham as well.
Reputations are formed over the course of major tournaments like the Euros or the World Cups. Nico Williams and Lamine Yamal can testify to that. They did not have a huge reputation coming into the tournament, but have enhanced it manifold with their spectacular performances.
Spain’s Superior Passing and Ball-Skills
It seems quite elementary that the team with players, who are more comfortable on the ball, will have the better chance of winning a match. Aside from Williams, who was simply brilliant with his dribbles and darting runs (both along the pitch and across it) and Yamal, who finished the tournament with a goal and four assists, Spain had other players, too, who loved to have the ball on their feet.
The one-touch passes that led to their winning goal was something that the English have not been able to do throughout the tournament. Rodri and, later, Martín Zubimendi, pulled the strings from the midfield for the Spaniards and Fabián Ruiz made forays down the middle into the final third.
England, meanwhile, preferred to sit deep for the most part and defend instead and had barely more than 30% ball-possession in the first half. Only one team tried to win the match from the beginning and it was not England. Simply put, the Spaniards were way faster and slicker inside the opposition half.
A few players who could have provided the spark, were on the bench. Some of them (Palmer and Watkins) came in in the second half, while some others (Anthony Gordon) did not. In the end, Southgate only had himself to blame for being overly defensive and not trying enough to win the match.