Yet the tiki-taka style synonymous with La Roja’s dynasty from 2008 to 2012 — when Spain passed opponents to death while winning two European Championships and a World Cup — has given way to a more proactive approach. Although Spain won the possession battle five times over its seven-game path to lifting the trophy Sunday in Berlin, the other two matches marked the first times it didn’t have the lion’s share of the ball since 2008 — snapping a stunning 136-game streak.
Such was Luis de la Fuente’s peerless pragmatism at Euro 2024. When the coach took over Spain’s national team in December 2022, the program had just crashed out of the World Cup round of 16 with a shootout loss to Morocco. Aside from a run to the Euro 2020 semifinals, the Spaniards had known nothing but early tournament exits since their most recent major title in 2012. So de la Fuente added a dash of youthful ruthlessness to the Spanish attack, flanking veteran striker Álvaro Morata with a pair of dynamic wingers in Nico Williams (who turned 22 on Friday) and Lamine Yamal (who turned 17 on Saturday). When midfield orchestrator Pedri went down with a knee sprain in the quarterfinal win over Germany, de la Fuente tweaked his formation from a 4-3-3 to a 4-2-3-1 to accommodate Dani Olmo as a more attack-minded replacement.
The proactive mind-set paid dividends throughout the tournament as Spain went on an unprecedented 7-0-0 tear with 15 goals scored and four against. To cap the run Sunday, Spain suffocated England with relentless possession and pressing. Whenever the Spaniards turned the ball over — typically after a long, exhausting spell of possession — Williams, Yamal and Co. hounded England in hopes of promptly winning it back.
Take Williams’s 47th-minute opener. The goal capped a 10-pass sequence that began with Spain methodically playing the ball around the back, but the strike itself unfolded in the blink of an eye. As Dani Carvajal connected with Ruiz’s simple pass near midfield, the right back used an outside-of-the-foot flick to pick out Yamal’s clever run behind England left back Luke Shaw. Cutting inside and running at the English defense, Yamal saw Williams bombing down the opposite flank undetected. With England right back Kyle Walker sucked inside by Olmo’s penetrating run, Williams was free to deposit Yamal’s well-weighted service past goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.
Substitute Mikel Oyarzabal’s 86th-minute winner unfolded even faster — over six passes and 13 seconds, to be precise. Collecting an entry ball from Olmo, Oyarzabal touched a pass wide to Marc Cucurella, crashed the box and stabbed home the left back’s pinpoint cross. By the time England recognized the threat, Pickford was picking the ball out of his net.
The vertical approach was a far cry from past Spanish teams that grew predictable while moving the ball from side to side and were loath to swing in crosses. Case in point: Spain attempted 23 crosses to England’s six.
For England’s part, conservative tactics neutralized Spain through 45 minutes while simultaneously hamstringing the Three Lions’ own playmakers. Deployed in a 4-2-3-1 formation (that occasionally morphed into more of a 5-3-2), England sat in a midblock defensive shape while conceding few chances and creating even fewer. It wasn’t until the second-half introductions of striker Ollie Watkins and playmaker Cole Palmer that England came to life as left winger Jude Bellingham swapped places with Phil Foden in the middle and right winger Bukayo Saka got the green light to forge forward. Sure enough, Palmer’s 73rd-minute equalizer was teed up by a smart touch from Bellingham following a weaving run from Saka.
Still, the end result was a just one. The analytics company Opta listed Spain’s “expected goals” — a metric that projects how many times a team should score with typical finishing — at 1.77. England’s expected goals? A measly 0.57. While Spain hit 60 passes into the attacking third, England had just 19. And most crucially, the Three Lions didn’t get enough from their two biggest stars. Per stats site WhoScored, Real Madrid’s Bellingham connected on 21 of 31 passes and Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane completed 5 of 10 — the two lowest percentages of any field players Sunday.
To compare, Williams had a 38-for-42 passing day, Yamal went 23 for 30, and the duo tied with a game-high three “key” passes. At this point, it’s safe to say Spain boasts two wingers capable of redefining La Roja’s playing style for the next decade-plus. Welcome, in other words, to the Spanish evolution.
