Gareth Southgate has revealed where he believes England fell short after their painful defeat at the hands of Spain in the final of Euro 2024.
The Three Lions fell to a 2-1 defeat in the showpiece game in Berlin, with Cole Palmer’s equaliser original cancelling out Nico Williams’ opener, before substitute Mikel Oyarzabal snuck between the centre-backs to take the game away from England and the trophy back to Spain.
And speaking in the wake of another painful, narrow tournament defeat, Southgate said that England’s inability to retain the ball contributed to the loss.
“We didn’t keep the ball well enough. You have to keep the ball when you win it back. In the end, that’s the bit that takes more out of your legs,” said the England manager.
Southgate was quick to praise Spain, calling them “the best team in the tournament”, but said that “I’m not sure we did enough” to win the game.
“I’m devastated, so proud of what they’ve done. We’ve just fallen a bit short. No question [there was resilience], we had momentum. Probably, across the 90 minutes, I don’t think we did enough.
“We’ve had a lot of issues coming into the tournament, we got Luke on tonight. But at the end we’ve fallen short.
“I think the players will take enormous credit for getting us to where we did but when you’re as close as that, you have to take your chances,” lamented Southgate, who has now lost two Euros finals while in charge after a bruising penalties defeat to Italy in 2021.
Southgate spoke among immediate speculation around whether he’ll carry on as England manager, with Gary Lineker and those in the BBC studio mentioning that they think this will be his final match in charge of the Three Lions. He has become the first manager in European Championship history to end on the losing side in two finals, though has been key to England’s best tournament performances since 1996.