Culture
Spain vs England: Where the Euro 2024 final could be won and lost
After 28 days of drama and more than 80 hours of football, 24 teams have been filtered down to two. There is only one more game to play.
Spain and England prepare for battle at the Olympiastadion in Berlin on Sunday evening, meeting for the first time since 2018 to fight for the European Championship title — and there are some thrilling narratives to sift through.
How do you stop Spain’s relentless wingers Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams? Have England become predictably unpredictable? Can you cut off Spain’s supply at source? England substitutions…. discuss.
The Athletic profiles the finalists’ strengths and weaknesses, the key battles, and the many sub-plots in your definitive tactical guide to the Euro 2024 final.
No one can begrudge Spain making it to the final.
After their 2-1 semi-final victory over France, Luis de la Fuente’s side became the first nation to win six matches in a single edition of the European Championships. They needed extra time against Germany but have otherwise dispatched each opponent in 90 minutes with the authority of ‘un viejo’ (an old man) swatting a fly away from his tapas.
With nine different goalscorers, Spain’s attacking threat has come from all over the pitch but it is clear where they possess the most danger.
Williams and Yamal have lit up this tournament on either flank, with their purposeful running and relentless dribbling dragging their side forward with their counter-attacking threat. The dynamic duo are responsible for 46 per cent of Spain’s total attempted take-ons this tournament.
The prodigious Yamal became the youngest scorer in European Championship history (16 years, 362 days) after his incredible semi-final goal against France.
It was a strike that could easily win goal of the tournament and you cannot say that France were not warned. Yamal’s tendency to cut inside onto his stronger left foot and curl a shot to the far post has become Arjen Robben-esque — you know what he is about to do but stopping it is another task altogether.
LAMINE YAMAL 😮💨😮💨😮💨
An absolute screamer from the 16-year-old!#BBCEuros #Euro2024 #ESPFRA pic.twitter.com/z4AaZwwWJp
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) July 9, 2024
This was UNREAL from 16-year-old Lamine Yamal 😱😱
Spain fans are going to remember this one forever ⬇️🇪🇸 pic.twitter.com/BN52vdSrhL
— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) July 9, 2024
And here he is doing that a few times for Spain as an even younger child…
2023: Lamine Yamal finishes top scorer at #U17EURO with four goals.
2024: Lamine Yamal scores a worldie in the #EURO2024 semi-final.
What a talent 👏🇪🇸 pic.twitter.com/IRJignOqCA
— UEFA U17 EURO (@UEFAUnder21) July 9, 2024
Beyond his shooting, Yamal’s creative threat has stood out the most. No Spanish player has logged more than his 11 open-play chances created and it is his wicked delivery to the back post that has consistently posed a threat.
GO DEEPER
Perfection, by Lamine Yamal
Against France, Fabian Ruiz should have done better from Yamal’s inviting cross but those whipped balls have become a trademark of the teenager — if that is even possible at his tender age — having assisted two goals using the same technique. He consistently cuts onto his stronger foot in the left channel or half-space and delivers a perfectly weighted ball to the oncoming team-mate crashing the box.
Opponents should not be surprised, given the near-identical deliveries he has provided for his club Barcelona across the past 12 months.
While Yamal received the plaudits for his performance on the right wing on Tuesday, it is down the left flank that Spain have most commonly channelled their attack this summer.
Against France, 59 per cent of their attacking touches came in the left third of the pitch — the second-highest share of any Euro 2024 game — with Spain seeing a notable tilt in their approach across the tournament. While 30 per cent of their overall attacking touches have come from Yamal’s right flank, 45 per cent have come down the left.
Why? Well, largely due to the attacking attributes on each side of the pitch. Where Yamal thrives off facing his opponent up in a one-v-one situation, Williams has been excellent at combining with left-back Marc Cucurella to overload their opponents on that side.
This is shown neatly in Spain’s passing network from their semi-final clash with France.
The rotations between Williams and Cucurella have been crucial to Spain’s attack. Sometimes, it will be the 21-year-old isolating his opposite number in the left channel (white) as Cucurella occupies the left half-space (red)…
…while other times, the pair will switch, as Cucurella hugs the touchline and Williams offers a penetrative run in behind between the opposition full-back and centre-back.
How can England stop Spain’s danger in wide areas?
In short, with great difficulty. England’s flexibility to shift to a back five in their quarter-final and semi-final clashes will be crucial as they look to condense the space across the width of the field.
In particular, Bukayo Saka’s energy will be required to protect England’s right side against Spain’s left-sided rotations. Saka came in for praise from his manager for his defensive discipline against the Netherlands on Wednesday evening, shifting his role out of possession according to the tactical tweaks made by the Dutch.
“The players made so many good decisions on the field,” Southgate said after the game.
“People like Bukayo Saka; the defensive responsibility he had. He started defending as a wing-back, then he had to go into midfield to defend, then he had to defend as a winger. There was so many things like that going on all night but I was really pleased with the quality of our play.”
Communication with Kyle Walker was crucial to such defensive discipline against the Netherlands. As shown below, Saka drops into a back five before Walker directs him to jump out to close Dutch midfielder Joey Veerman — allowing Walker to shuffle across to Cody Gakpo and retain England’s back four.
It is a simple yet vital action to ensure that the opposition does not progress further. You can easily substitute this situation out for Cucurella and Williams.
By the same token, England should be empowered to attack Spain’s left flank and target Cucurella’s defensive frailties — especially with the attacking prowess that Saka has shown in this tournament.
Cucurella has had a decent summer in a Spain shirt but has not been convincing at club level since making the move to Chelsea from Brighton in 2022. Of the chances that Spain have conceded, 42 per cent have come down their left flank compared with 24 per cent down their right — and the 25-year-old has often been the weak link, whether it is defending back-post crosses, including Spain’s concessions against Germany and France…
…or failing to block crosses himself from his own flank.
With nearly every England player having faced Cucurella in the Premier League, they will be familiar with his shortcomings out of possession. Preying upon them would be a decision that could prove lucrative.
Spain’s wingers have grabbed the headlines but their midfield engine has allowed them to hit top gear.
The partnership of Rodri and Ruiz has been near-perfect, giving freedom to Pedri and — more recently — Dani Olmo to pick up pockets of space between the lines.
Rodri is a man operating at the peak of his powers in the past 18 months, with a consistency that is so impressive that we are in danger of taking it for granted. Spain’s No 16 has made 403 passes in this tournament with a completion rate of 94 per cent. Let that sink in.
Coupled with the box-crashing, technical quality of Ruiz, Rodri has the capacity to catalyse the attack or act as the release valve under pressure — scaling up or down however he sees fit.
Breaking down Spain’s open-play shot-ending sequences, you can be confident that this formidable pair will have their fingerprints on their nation’s attack at some stage.
Therefore, stopping that midfield pairing will go a long way to stopping Spain’s fluid approach at source.
How might England do that? Well, Germany provided a decent blueprint in the first half of their quarter-final clash, with midfielders Ilkay Gundogan and Emre Can going man-for-man on Rodri and Fabian Ruiz during Spain’s build-up — preventing the pair from dictating the play.
There were countless examples where Germany pressed aggressively to ensure that neither received the ball in their own third. This forced the Spain goalkeeper Unai Simon to frequently launch the ball long, often conceding possession in the process.
If England can maintain similar discipline across the full game — potentially dropping Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden on the Spanish midfielders — it could prevent Spain’s engine from purring.
The issue is that De la Fuente’s side have a double threat in their approach. Step off them and they can look after possession for long periods. Try to get tight to them and they can punish you with their directness in wide areas.
Spain might be the standout favourites but England will arrive in Berlin as the more experienced nation in recent major tournaments.
The Spanish have not reached the final of the Euros since they won it in 2012 while Southgate has made it back-to-back finals and England are looking to overcome the disappointment of their loss to Italy in 2021.
A diplomatic appraisal would be that England have been confusing this summer. There have been flashes of cohesion in possession — particularly in the first half against the Dutch — but the overriding conclusion has been that Southgate’s side have shown strengths in individual moments rather than their general performance.
The speed of England’s forward play has been a huge source of frustration among fans and the numbers support their grievances.
Here, we can look at each nation’s “direct speed”, which outlines how fast they typically advance the ball towards goal (in metres per second). A higher number indicates a team more willing to get the ball forward quickly. Additionally, we can explore how much a team likes to keep hold of the ball when they have it, measured by “passes per sequence”. More passes per sequence suggests a more considered build-up: knocking the ball around more during a given possession rather than a quick hoof upfield.
Comparing England’s style to the remaining 23 teams, their approach in possession has been careful, risk-averse and lacking in bite for much of the tournament.
A high-possession style does not have to be a bad thing but England have not matched their on-ball dominance with attacking threat. Among all last-16 nations, only Romania and Georgia (0.7 per 90) averaged a lower non-penalty expected goals than England’s 0.72 per 90.
The highest nation on the list? That would be Spain, generating chances worthy of 1.8 goals per 90 across their six games.
Southgate’s tactical acumen has been questioned at times but his tweak to England’s system has provided a greater foundation in the past two games — particularly given the mixed efficacy of their pressing high up the field.
A move to a 3-4-2-1 has suited Saka, Foden and Bellingham in particular, with greater balance in attacks and greater protection in defence.
GO DEEPER
England’s change of shape against Switzerland worked – to a point – thanks to Bukayo Saka
Where things have still not quite clicked is with Harry Kane. England’s captain scored the crucial equaliser against the Netherlands, notching his sixth goal in the knockout stages of this tournament — more than any other player in European Championship history.
Notwithstanding his world-class quality in front of goal, Kane’s fitness and form has come under greater scrutiny considering the impact of Ollie Watkins on Wednesday evening.
At the risk of cherry-picking examples, it is Kane’s lack of inclination to run in behind that allows the opposition to squeeze the pitch at times. In the example below, Kane shimmies towards Bellingham on the ball (white arrow) despite a gap opening up between Virgil van Dijk and Nathan Ake (black arrow/area).
The situation is different but Watkins’ desire to run beyond the last line is not only crucial to his goal but it gives Cole Palmer the option to make that pass — running into space to stretch the opposition defence. Kane does not make those kinds of runs.
Kane is certainly not going to be dropped for the final but England might need both options to be true against Spain — a player who can drop in and overload central areas, but also a player who can stretch the defence.
Southgate’s substitutions have drawn scrutiny this summer — in both selection and timing.
Ultimately, his decisions have been validated in recent games. Ivan Toney’s late arrival proved crucial for England’s equaliser against Slovakia while the introduction of Palmer and Watkins was an inspired choice as the two combined for England’s winner against Netherlands.
That being said, the numbers don’t lie. Southgate has not given ample opportunity for his substitutions to settle into the game, with an average substitution time of 80 minutes being the second-latest of the sides to make it beyond the group stage.
This is particularly telling when considering that a lot of this time has been when England have been in a losing or drawing game state. Southgate’s side have spent just 22 per cent of the time in a winning game-state, compared with Spain’s 58 per cent — the highest of any nation. If things are not going to plan in Berlin, Southgate’s form suggests he is more likely to stick than twist.
GO DEEPER
Gareth Southgate has plenty of options on the bench – why is he so slow to use them?
Sure, England have not been free-flowing or convincing for a full game across the whole tournament, but maybe that is OK. In a contest where the margins are tight and individual quality counts for a lot, pragmatism can actually go a long way.
At club level, you only need to look as far as Champions League winners Real Madrid to know that having a rigid structure in and out of possession can be overrated in knockout football.
A closing thought on Sunday’s final would be to credit both managers’ commitment to their respective national set-up from the youth team to the national side.
De la Fuente coached Spain to the European Championship title at under-19 level (2016) and under-21 level (2019), and has the opportunity to complete a hat-trick with his senior squad. Meanwhile, Southgate’s commitment to the English FA dates back to 2013, leading England under-21s in the 2015 European Championship before his promotion to the senior set-up in 2016.
Both managers have been crucial to the promotion of youth within their national set-up and should be celebrated for the talent on show in Sunday’s final.
May the best team win.
(Photos: Getty Images/Design: Eamonn Dalton)
Whatever you do, don’t think of a bird.
Now: What kind of bird are you not thinking about? A pigeon? A bald eagle? Something more poetic, like a skylark or a nightingale? In any case, would you say that this bird you aren’t thinking about is real?
Before you answer, read this poem, which is quite literally about not thinking of a bird.
Human consciousness is full of riddles. Neuroscientists, philosophers and dorm-room stoners argue continually about what it is and whether it even exists. For Wallace Stevens, the experience of having a mind was a perpetual source of wonder, puzzlement and delight — perfectly ordinary and utterly transcendent at the same time. He explored the mysteries and pleasures of consciousness in countless poems over the course of his long poetic career. It was arguably his great theme.
Stevens was born in 1879 and published his first book, “Harmonium,” in 1923, making him something of a late bloomer among American modernists. For much of his adult life, he worked as an executive for the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, rising to the rank of vice president. He viewed insurance less as a day job to support his poetry than as a parallel vocation. He pursued both activities with quiet diligence, spending his days at the office and composing poems in his head as he walked to and from work.
As a young man, Stevens dreamed of traveling to Europe, though he never crossed the Atlantic. In middle age he made regular trips to Florida, and his poems are frequently infused with ideas of Paris and Rome and memories of Key West. Others partake of the stringent beauty of New England. But the landscapes he explores, wintry or tropical, provincial or cosmopolitan, are above all mental landscapes, created by and in the imagination.
Are those worlds real?
Let’s return to the palm tree and its avian inhabitant, in that tranquil Key West sunset of the mind.
Until then, we find consolation in fangles.
When the director Rob Reiner cast his leads in the 1986 film “Stand by Me,” he looked for young actors who were as close as possible to the personalities of the four children they’d be playing. There was the wise beyond his years kid from a rough family (River Phoenix), the slightly dim worrywart (Jerry O’Connell), the cutup with a temper (Corey Feldman) and the sensitive, bookish boy.
Wil Wheaton was perfect for that last one, Gordie Lachance, a doe-eyed child who is ignored by his family in favor of his late older brother. Now, 40 years later, he’s traveling the country to attend anniversary screenings of the film, alongside O’Connell and Feldman, which has thrown him back into the turmoil that he felt as an adolescent.
Wheaton has channeled those emotions and his on-set memories into his latest project: narrating a new audiobook version of “The Body,” the 1982 Stephen King novella on which the film was based.
A few years ago, Wheaton started to float the idea of returning to the story that gave him his big break — that of a quartet of boys in 1959 Oregon, in their last days before high school, setting out to find a classmate’s dead body. “I’ve been telling the story of ‘Stand By Me’ since I was 12 years old,” he said.
But this time was different. Wheaton, who has narrated dozens of audiobooks, including Andy Weir’s “The Martian” and Ernest Cline’s “Ready Player One,” says he has come to enjoy narration more than screen acting. “I’m safe, I’m in the booth, nobody’s looking at me and I can just tell you a story.”
The fact that he, an older man looking back on his younger years, is narrating a story about an older man looking back on his younger years, is not lost on Wheaton. King’s original story is bathed in nostalgia. Coming to terms with death and loss is one of its primary themes.
Two days after appearing on stage at the Academy Awards as part of a tribute to Reiner — who was murdered in 2025 alongside his wife, Michele — Wheaton got on the phone to talk about recording the audiobook, reliving his favorite scenes from the film and reexamining a quintessential story of childhood loss through the lens of his own.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
“I felt really close to him, and my memory of him.”
Wheaton on channeling a co-star’s performance.
There’s this wonderful scene in “Stand By Me.” Gordie and Chris are walking down the tracks talking about junior high. Chris is telling Gordie, “I wish to hell I was your dad, because I care about you, and he obviously doesn’t.”
It’s just so honest and direct, in a way that kids talk to each other that adults don’t. And I think that one of the reasons that really sticks with people, and that piece really lands on a lot of audiences, and has for 40 years, is, just too many people have been Gordie in that scene.
That scene is virtually word for word taken from the text of the book. And when I was narrating that, I made a deliberate choice to do my best to recreate what River did in that scene.
“You’re just a kid,
Gordie–”
“I wish to fuck
I was your father!”
he said angrily.
“You wouldn’t go around
talking about takin those stupid shop courses if I was!
It’s like
God gave you something,
all those stories
you can make up, and He said:
This is what we got for you, kid.
Try not to lose it.
But kids lose everything
unless somebody looks out for them and if your folks
are too fucked up to do it
then maybe I ought to.”
I watched that scene a couple of times because I really wanted — I don’t know why it was so important to me to — well, I know: because I loved him, and I miss him. And I wanted to bring him into this as best as I could, right?
So I was reading that scene, and the words are identical to the script. And I had this very powerful flashback to being on the train tracks that day in Cottage Grove, Oregon. And I could see River standing next to them. They’re shooting my side of the scene and there’s River, right next to the camera, doing his off-camera dialogue, and there’s the sound guy, and there’s the boom operator. There’s my key light.
I could hear and feel it. It was the weirdest thing. It’s like I was right back there.
I was able to really take in the emotional memory of being Gordie in all of those scenes. So when I was narrating him and I’m me and I’m old with all of this experience, I just drew on what I remembered from being that little boy and what I remember of those friendships and what they meant to me and what they mean to me today.
“Rob gave me a gift. Rob gave me a career.”
Wheaton recalls the “Stand By Me” director’s way with kids on set, as well as his recent Oscars tribute.
Rob really encouraged us to be kids.
Jerry tells the most amazing story about that scene, where we were all sitting around, and doing our bit, and he improvised. He was just goofing around — we were just playing — and he said something about spitting water at the fat kid.
We get to the end of the scene, and he hears Rob. Rob comes around from behind the thing, and he goes, “Jerry!” And Jerry thinks, “Oh no, I’m in trouble. I’m in trouble because I improvised, and I’m not supposed to improvise.”
The context for Jerry is that he had been told by the adults in his life, “Sit on your hands and shut up. Stop trying to be a cutup. Stop trying to be funny. Stop disrupting people. Just be quiet.” And Jerry thinks, “Oh my God. I didn’t shut up. I’m in trouble. I’m gonna get fired.”
Rob leans in to all of us, and Rob says, “Hey, guys, do you see that? More of that. Do that!”
The whole time when you’re a kid actor, you’re just around all these adults who are constantly telling you to grow up. They’re mad that you’re being a kid. Rob just created an environment where not only was it supported that we would be kids — and have fun, and follow those kid instincts and do what was natural — it was expected. It was encouraged. We were supposed to do it.
They chanted together:
“I don’t shut up,
I grow up.
And when I look at you I throw up.”
“Then your mother goes around the corner
and licks it up,”
I said, and hauled ass out of there,
giving them the finger over my shoulder as I went.
I never had any friends later on
like the ones I had when I was twelve.
Jesus, did you?
When we were at the Oscars, I looked at Jerry. And we looked at this remarkable assemblage of the most amazingly talented, beautiful artists and storytellers. We looked around, and Jerry leans down, and he said, “We all got our start with Rob Reiner. He trusted every single one of us.”
And to stand there for him, when I really thought that I would be standing with him to talk about this stuff — it was a lot.
“I was really really really excited — like jumping up and down.”
The scene Wheaton was most looking forward to narrating: the tale of Lard Ass Hogan.
I was so excited to narrate it. It’s a great story! It’s a funny story. It’s such a lovely break — it’s an emotional and tonal shift from what’s happening in the movie.
I know this as a writer: You work to increase and release tension throughout a narrative, and Stephen King uses humor really effectively to release that tension. But it also raises the stakes, because we have these moments of joy and these moments of things being very silly in the midst of a lot of intensity.
That’s why the story of Lard Ass Hogan is so fun for me to tell. Because in the middle of that, we stop to do something that’s very, very fun, and very silly and very celebratory.
“Will you shut up and let him tell it?”
Teddy hollered.
Vern blinked.
“Sure. Yeah.
Okay.”
“Go on, Gordie,”
Chris said. “It’s not really much—”
“Naw,
we don’t expect much from a wet end like you,”
Teddy said,
“but tell it anyway.”
I cleared my throat. “So anyway.
It’s Pioneer Days,
and on the last night
they have these three big events.
There’s an egg-roll for the little kids and a sack-race for kids that are like eight or nine,
and then there’s the pie-eating contest.
And the main guy of the story
is this fat kid nobody likes
named Davie Hogan.”
When I narrate this story — whenever there is a moment of levity or humor, whenever there are those brief little moments that are the seasoning of the meal that makes it all so real and relatable — yes, it was very important to me to capture those moments.
I’m shifting in my chair, so I can feel each of those characters. It’s something that doesn’t exist in live action. It doesn’t exist in any other media.
“I feel the loss.”
Wheaton remembers River Phoenix.
The novella “The Body” is very much about Gordie remembering Chris. It’s darker, and it’s more painful, than the movie is.
I’ve been watching the movie on this tour and seeing River a lot. I remember him as a 14- and 15-year-old kid who just seemed so much older, and so much more experienced and so much wiser than me, and I’m only a year younger than him.
What hurts me now, and what I really felt when I was narrating this, is knowing what River was going through then. We didn’t know. I still don’t know the extent of how he was mistreated, but I know that he was. I know that adults failed him. That he should have been protected in every way that matters. And he just wasn’t.
And I, like Gordie, remember a boy who was loving. So loving, and generous and cared deeply about everyone around him, all the time. Who deserved to live a full life. Who had so much to offer the world. And it’s so unfair that he’s gone and taken from us. I had to go through a decades-long grieving process to come to terms with him dying.
Near the end
of 1971,
Chris
went into a Chicken Delight in Portland
to get a three-piece Snack Bucket.
Just ahead of him,
two men started arguing
about which one had been first in line. One of them pulled a knife.
Chris,
who had always been the best of us
at making peace,
stepped between them and was stabbed in the throat.
The man with the knife had spent time in four different institutions;
he had been released from Shawshank State Prison
only the week before.
Chris died almost instantly.
It is a privilege that I was allowed to tell this story. I get to tell Gordie Lachance’s story as originally imagined by Stephen King, with all of the experience of having lived my whole adult life with the memory of spending three months in Gordie Lachance’s skin.
Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about printed works that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions and more. This week’s challenge highlights offbeat television shows that began as comic books. Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the comics and their screen versions.
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