The explosion came at 22.45 in Berlin, a new beginning. A dozen men and one kid, all of them wearing yellow bibs, were suddenly sprinting along the home straight where Jesse Owens once ran. They set off from the bench and screeched towards the corner to meet Mikel Oyarzabal, the substitute who, with four minutes left in this final, that made Spain European champions, another generation to go with the golden one. In front of a sea of red, they lost their heads, and why wouldn’t they?
Soon they returned to their bench, or the white box painted in front of it, a short but anxious wait to confirm that they would lift that trophy again. Álvaro Morata was in tears already. The man who said he would cut his arm off to win this, the captain they couldn’t love more, raised it to the sky, sharing this with them like he shares everything. Justice was done, history too. For , it is a record four times: 1964, 2008, 2012 and now 2024. For Jesús Navas, the last man standing from the team that won the World Cup, aged 38, it was a second. For the rest, it was a first, which made it so special.
When the whistle went, they flooded on to the field again, collapsing into embraces. They threw Luis de la Fuente, a big, muscular man, into the sky. Asked about their coach at the start of this competition, one opponent had said: who? Now, he will be able to look De la Fuente up in the history books. He always said they had come to do something big, but when it all began in this same stadium few outside the Spain camp really thought they would. Now they had.
Down in Donaueschingen something was being built, displayed in Berlin, Gelsenkirschen, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Stuttgart, Munich and now Berlin again. Andrés Iniesta, David Villa and Xavi, footballing forefathers, applauded them. They can never be matched, or so it goes. But maybe they just had been. This was the single most impressive tournament in their history, surely.
They had taken the lead here, something significant, fitting, in the players who combined to make it happen. Nico Williams turned 22 on Friday, Lamine Yamal turned 17 on Saturday, so these inseparable symbols of a new Spain came together on Sunday, the party beginning in Berlin, from where it will soon move on to Madrid. Lamine Yamal, not even a year when Spain’s most successful cycle started with Euro 2008, provided the chance. Williams, who was only five, finished it.
This will for ever be their competition; the future belongs to them too. It may belong to Spain too on this evidence. They had to suffer, sure, finding hope from somewhere with Cole Palmer’s strike at a time when Rodri had gone, Morata had gone, Robin Le Normand had gone and Nacho was on, but Spain deserved it. This team is a cuadrilla the coach says – a Basque word for group of mates who stay together for life – and it was a Basque who won it for them, Oyarzabal, on as a sub and sliding the ball beyond Jordan Pickford, which felt fitting too.
Lamine Yamal and Williams have shone all month. And Rodri and Fabián Ruiz. And all of them. Dani Carvajal’s wonderful pass started the move for the first. Marc Cucurella’s pass set up the second. Dani Olmo, originally a sub, had been involved in more goals than anyone at the tournament. Here, he headed off the line, hanging on to that lead and on to history. Martin Zubimendi was the perfect replacement for the injured Rodri. Mikel Merino, a sub, saw them past Germany. And Oyarzabal, another sub, another European champion at youth level too, scored the goal that took them past England.
Those opponents are some names, which tells a story. They had beaten Croatia and Italy and Germany and France. Three world champions had been defeated; now for a fourth. And it was the way they had done it too. Has anyone ever dominated a Euros or World Cup quite like Spain, ever been so manifestly superior? So much so that they elevate the whole thing somehow, becoming the team the tournament itself needed. Look at the statistics, and in almost every metric Spain lead, except the one they’re meant to lead in, the meme they tried to escape, that ersatz version of their former selves.
Against Croatia on their opening night here, Spain “lost” possession for the first time in a competitive game since 2008, back before that golden era had began. Three games later, against Germany, it happened again. Coming into this final, three teams had more of the ball than they did; England were one of them. And that was the way they wanted it.
The team that played more than a thousand passes, didn’t score and went out in Russia, that did the same in Qatar, would be more direct, quicker, vertical, and so it was. They were fun. They scored more goals, created more chances, and had more shots than anyone. There were more tackles, more ball recoveries and the highest line this tournament has ever had. They had won six times, twice as many as England, and they made it seven here. The 2008 team didn’t do this, the 2012 side didn’t either.
“If we’re not Spain, we won’t have a chance of winning. We have to be recognisable,” De la Fuente had said, and they were. In the old way and the new. They finished this game with 65% of the ball, a sense of superiority, and 16 shots. Williams and Oyarzabal delivered the decisive ones, taking Spain back to the place where De la Fuente says they belong.