Spain is the king of European football for a record fourth time. For England, it is another agonising near miss in the team’s decades-long tale of underachievement.
Completing a tournament the team dominated from start to finish, Spain beat England 2-1 in the European Championship final on Sunday with Mikel Oyarzabal the unlikely match-winner in the 86th minute.
Oyarzabal, a backup striker who came on as a substitute for captain Alvaro Morata, slid in to poke home a left-wing cross by Marc Cucurella, just when the game at Berlin’s Olympiastadion seemed destined for extra time.
England, the birthplace of football, is still without a major title in the men’s game since winning the 1966 World Cup and its players watched on forlornly as Morata raised aloft the silver trophy to a backdrop of confetti and fireworks inside the stadium built for the 1936 Olympics.
“Here we are, champions of Europe,” said Nico Williams, whose opening goal for Spain in the 47th minute was cancelled out by England substitute Cole Palmer in the 73rd. “We are thrilled and hope this can keep going and we can go for the [2026] World Cup.”
Spain won all seven games at this European Championship – an unprecedented feat – and broke the record for goals scored in a single tournament, with 15.
As for England, the men’s team has now lost back-to-back Euro finals – it was defeated in a penalty shootout by Italy on home soil in the final in 2021 – and this was another painful loss for a team that will have gone six decades without a major title by the next World Cup.