How Spain brutally exploited England’s lack of collective quality at Euro 2024

Spain deserved to win the Euro 2024 final, but from England’s perspective the investigation should not focus on how superior their opponents were in Berlin that night, but how overwhelmingly superior they were throughout the tournament.

If we were to rank the performances of the 14 teams that played in this tournament, in terms of quality, we would mention the seven teams that Spain played and then the seven teams that England played. That is the extent of the difference. Spain’s performance impressed and amazed us in every match. They had weaknesses, like all the other teams, but these weaknesses generally arose from their courage and commitment to attack.

England were disappointing in the group stage, never really going forward, but at least they were solid defensively. Then in the knockout stages, if you exclude the penalty they were awarded in the semi-final against the Netherlands, England conceded more expected goals than they created in the four games.

Based on each team’s starting lineups, this shouldn’t be the case at all.

At the last Ballon d’Or ceremony, which is now contested on a seasonal basis rather than annually and was therefore decided around this time last year, Spain did not have a single player on the 30-man shortlist. In The Guardian’s list of the world’s 100 best players, voted on at the end of 2023, Spain had just three players in the top 70. Of those three, Gavi missed the entire Euro 2024 tournament through injury, Pedri was ruled out of the rest of the tournament after suffering an injury early in the quarter-final against Germany, and Rodri had to come off at half-time in the final.

You would expect several Spanish players to be higher up in this year’s rankings. But the point is that the team was without any of its leading international stars in last night’s match in the crucial 45 minutes after the break.

This was ultimately a triumph of teamwork and cohesion over individualism.

England had no fewer than 13 of the top 100 players on the above list, including some who did not make Gareth Southgate’s 26-man squad for Euro 2024. England’s trump card at the tournament was boasting the best player in the Premier League (Phil Foden), the Bundesliga (Harry Kane) and La Liga (Jude Bellingham).

England didn’t lack star power, they lacked cohesion.

It is difficult to find a single collective concept that England have worked well in over the seven games. Goalkeeper Jordan Pickford’s distribution of the ball was often too direct and when England tried to play out from the back there were no clear patterns. Their passing network from the final shows no interaction at all between the forwards and also reveals that their most common passing combination was central defender John Stones playing the ball to Pickford.

Spain, by contrast, is a work of art.

In terms of pressing, a difficult concept in tournament football, England’s performance was notably lacklustre, not helped by the limited movement of striker Kane. But pressing is also about organisation and England’s approach was incoherent. In the final third, for all the big men, there was little sign of positive interplay – no two players seemed to be on the same page (except Bukayo Saka and Kyle Walker), no rotations, no one stretching the play to create space for others. And while England have spent long periods on their back feet at this tournament, it’s also hard to recall many examples of them breaking forward on the counter, something their forwards are all capable of doing individually.

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This team was simply built on magical moments – Bellingham’s overhead kick to take Slovakia to extra time, Saka’s late winner against Switzerland, Ollie Watkins’s late winner against the Netherlands, Cole Palmer’s equaliser in the final. And there’s no denying that several newcomers – Marc Guehi, Ezri Konsa, Kobbie Mainoo – also stood out and put in strong performances.

But all this only proves the quality of the individual players. As a team, England performed averagely and were lucky to reach the final.

Their main problem going into the final was pressure.

From the first minute, it looked like there was an intention to press hard. From Spain’s first goal kick, England pressed hard and tried to impose their control. But was there an actual plan?

With six players – Spain’s back four and two midfielders – to close down the space, England press with five, leaving right-back Dani Carvajal free. Spain clearly have a great chance of being offside, so move the ball to that side of the pitch.

There are different ways to England. could We’ve pressed with five here. If Bellingham blocks the pass to the right-back, for example, or if England then move laterally across the pitch with Saka, on the near side, moving to pick out a central midfielder, then it might be possible to say there is a plan.

But England looked disorganised, as Carvajal received the ball, Luke Shaw was looking nervously over his shoulder, unsure whether he was supposed to jump forward and press or not. Carvajal had just enough time to pass the ball forward…

…and the attack ends with Alvaro Morata, who has penetrated deep to get the ball, trying to pass it to Lamine Yamal. It is true that he would have been offside anyway, but after only one minute Spain succeeded in breaching the English defence.

This wasn’t an isolated incident. Here’s the same situation, 10 minutes into the game. Spain are playing out from the back. Shaw isn’t sure whether he’s supposed to dive or not. Bellingham seems to be telling him he should.

Spain pass the ball towards this side. Bellingham tries to close the area, but he does it alone. Shaw is miles away from Carvajal, so again there is an easy pass.

Then Carvajal has time to pick out a good long pass…

…and if Nico Williams had his head on the ball, he might have passed it to Fabian Ruiz who was running after him.

These problems have never been resolved.

In the second half, Spain switched to a 4-2-3-1 from the 4-3-3 they started with, but England had the same problem when they tried to press in the middle third of the pitch. Here, Bellingham points to Yamal, perhaps asking Shaw to carry him, although it is impossible to know.

As the ball is passed towards Shaw, we can see his outstretched arm pointing frantically – and again, it’s not entirely clear what the regulation is here.

But anyway, Shaw – who was excellent in one-on-one situations – was caught in the middle. He wasn’t close enough to put pressure on Carvajal, but he also allowed Yamal to get close to him and the winger ran onto Carvajal’s clever outside-of-the-foot pass around the corner.

Yamal dribbles inside the field and passes the ball to Williams…

…who finishes smartly.

The pattern continues. Here, with Robin Le Normand carrying the ball into midfield, Yamal drifts inside with Carvajal in overlap. Bellingham is pointing at something. So is Shaw. But neither is really in a position to close either player down.

Yamal gets the ball and plays it in the back…

…and Morata gets a good chance to make it 2-0.

In fact, Spain’s winning goal came from the other side.

In the closing minutes of a long tournament, England can be forgiven for not pressing hard here.

However, the positioning of the attacking players initially suggests that they wanted to, but the pass that Aymeric Laporte sent to Ruiz was very simple. There was no pressure on either player.

And then, on the other side, there was a familiar situation. Walker wasn’t sure whether to follow Dani Olmo inside, while Saka wasn’t aware of Marc Cucurella’s run.

That opened the door for England. Walker was chasing shadows here, the ball spinning around him at speed. From there, it was simply worth appreciating the quality of the goal – Mikel Oyarzabal linking up play to send the ball through to Cucurella…

…then he timed his run into the penalty area to get the return ball and score.

England were not entirely embarrassed in the final. They made it to half-time without conceding a clear-cut chance. They got back into the game thanks to their use of the substitutes’ bench. England defended well from set pieces and had a good chance to equalise again from a corner late in the game.

But England played like the underdogs, playing a lot of long balls and chasing the opposition as individuals rather than pressing as a team.

It helps that they lost the second half to a team forced to deal with the game without the man who was later voted player of the tournament, Rodri.

Spain, collectively, were on a different level to England – last night and over the past month.