Match of the tournament
Austria and Turkey promised high intensity on and off the pitch in their last-16 game. Merih Demiral, later the subject of a Uefa ban, scored within a minute of kick-off and the tempo barely let up. At the very end Turkey’s goalkeeper, Mert Gunok, made one of the best saves you will ever see to deny us extra time amid a tinderbox atmosphere in Leipzig. While Austria had been good, Red Bull fuelled fun, the way Turkey fed off the vibes of their ear-splitting support was a feature of the summer. Nick Ames
The comic-book finale to Portugal’s penalty shootout last-16 victory against Slovenia was quite magnificent, borderline silly. Georgia beating Portugal to qualify for the knockout stages was also a brilliant occasion to savour. Ben Fisher
Germany v Spain was one of those tournament matches that married an epic scale with the finest of details. Mikel Merino’s celebration. Toni Kroos’s exit. The saltiness. The controversy. The chaos of extra time. And in hindsight, a game that should probably have been a final. Jonathan Liew
Turkey v Georgia: a wet, wild unexpected noisy belter of a match. An hour before kick-off as a bunch of blokes with brooms desperately tried to brush a biblical storm down a hole in the ground and there were waterfalls in all four corners of the BVB Stadion, you couldn’t see how it could possibly go ahead. What a joy that it did, and that they didn’t seem that worried about defending. There were 103 attacks, 38 shots, three efforts off posts and four goals: one historic, two ridiculous, and another with the last touch of the game. Sid Lowe
There aren’t really any standout candidates, though Turkey played in a few sturm und drang affairs, including against Georgia who also gave Spain a run for their money (before getting routed), and against the Dutch (who also impressed in exposing Romania in the round of 16). So likely the winner is in there someplace, or perhaps it’s Spain v Germany! Who knows, but each contender was – like the tournament – a collection of moments rather than a competitive, unrelenting contest. Paul MacInnes
Spain v Germany in the quarter-final. Germany will rightly feel aggrieved – and there was a whiff of controversy about them not being given a penalty – after finishing as the stronger team. Yet this proved typical of Spain’s tournament spirit. It was a gripping tie, showcasing the very best of international football – and there were precious few of them in the entire competition. Ewan Murray
That I went to, Spain 2-1 Germany in Stuttgart. A pendulum-swinger with a surprising degree of brutality. This could have been a tournament game from 1992. In a good way. Barney Ronay
Spain 2 Germany 1. Brilliant football, high drama, terrible refereeing, excellent goals and last-minute agony for the hosts. Jacob Steinberg
Austria 3 Netherlands 2. It had great goals, great drama and, that rarity at international level, a national side playing with at least some of the cohesion of a club side. Jonathan Wilson
Player of the tournament
Given the numerous grumbles regarding the tournament’s entertainment value it was important some new stars were born. This was surely the summer when Cristiano Ronaldo bowed out of top-level football and on recent evidence Harry Kane is no sure thing to lead England into the 2026 World Cup. So while Lamine Yamal is clearly on for global stardom I will hand this to Nico Williams, whose thrilling form on the wing for Spain was a revelation to those who have not followed the recent La Liga season in depth. The real answer, of course, is probably Rodri even if his final was cut short. NA
I remember watching Fabián Ruiz and Dani Olmo shine in Spain’s European Under-21 Championship final victory against Germany in Udine five years ago. Mikel Oyarzabal led the line that day, Luis de la Fuente was the manager. In Germany this summer, Fabián and Olmo were magnificent en route to another trophy. Fabián is my pick. He was a fixture from the start, scoring a brilliant goal against Croatia and his dainty feet and quick thinking proved the perfect foil for the near-flawless Rodri. BF
There is no cast-iron law dictating that Lamine Yamal even had to start for Spain at this tournament. You bring him off the bench. You give him some tournament experience. You play the long game for the World Cup. Surely. And so Lamine Yamal’s explosion – capped by that wonderful goal against France – felt like more than the blossoming of a generational talent. It felt like an act of pure faith. JL
Well, he’s Spanish. Trouble is, it could be so many potential men. And one child. Rodri, Fabián Ruiz and possibly my favourite, Dani Olmo, are all very, very good and not entirely expected candidates. Then there’s Lamine Yamal, of course. “Did you know he’s 16?” Etc and so on. And he’s 17 now, which you probably also knew but which is still absurd. But, and yes I’m biased, I really, really like Nico Williams. SL
Lamine Yamal is certainly the story of the tournament, and the scorer of the goal of the tournament, so why not the player too? Other individuals could perhaps make a case for having found a consistently high level of play (England’s Marc Guéhi and Bukayo Saka being two) but Lamine Yamal’s contributions were more decisive, more precise, more controlled. He led the competition for assists, he created the most “big chances”, they found a photo of him as a baby with Lionel Messi; yeah, it’s him. And it may well be him again in future. PM
It summed up the Euros that this award cannot be immediately pinned to one player. Many will point to Lamine Yamal but this is a stretch. Rodri was Spain’s most influential player throughout and therefore the pick of the bunch in this tournament. EM
Lamine Yamal. These Euros may have lacked a certain star quality. We have been spoilt a little over the last few decades. Cristiano Ronaldo is basically a cardboard selfie cutout now. Lamine Yamal gave us that rare thing, a glimpse of superstar talent in the making. Close to the pitch the goal against France was just breathtaking. BR
Lamine Yamal: Spain’s version of Wayne Rooney at Euro 2004. JS
Rodri. Given the attacking nature of Fabián Ruiz and both Pedri and Dani Olmo, his defensive qualities were seriously tested. Inevitably he passed that test, retained a ludicrous pass-completion rate and scored a vital goal against Georgia. JW
Goal of the tournament
I mean, for the mixture of theatre and sheer gumption it has to be Jude Bellingham. But Nicolae Stanciu’s goal for Romania against Ukraine, which may as well have been several decades ago now, was possibly the best I saw in person. It took tremendous execution to run on to a slightly bobbling ball and outswing it with vicious swerve and dip into the top corner from well outside the box. An honourable mention, too, for the precision mustered by Mattia Zaccagni as an otherwise poor Italy contrived a brilliant, dramatic equaliser with Bellingham-like timing against Croatia. NA
It has to be Lamine Yamal’s peach, doesn’t it? Jude Bellingham’s overhead kick 86 seconds from oblivion was superb, Arda Guler’s ripped left-foot strike against Georgia so pure but Lamine Yamal nonchalantly bending a strike into the top corner, aged 16, in a semi-final was just a staggering sight. BF
Lamine Yamal against France. JL
“Move in silence; only speak when it’s time to say checkmate.” Lamine Yamal. SL
Lamine Yamal. Others will describe it better, but despite having sent the entire French defence to the boulangerie with a dropped shoulder, he still had very little time and space to be able to produce such a superlative pinpoint shot. And yet, it was enough. PM
Nothing comes close to Lamine Yamal versus France, surely. EM
Xherdan Shaqiri versus Scotland, an absurdly perfect first-time lofted top corner spank from the Power Cube that made this correspondent jump up and shout something incoherent. BR
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Jude Bellingham rescuing England from humiliation with an overhead kick against Slovakia. Not normal behaviour. JS
Lamine Yamal against France. It wasn’t just the precision of the strike, arced beyond Mike Maignan’s dive and in off the post, it was the context, equalising just as the first questions of how Spain might hope to score against this France were beginning to crystallise. JW
Personal highlight
Seeing every game, whether it was Slovenia against Serbia or France taking on Portugal, contested to a stadium of fans for whom these seemed the most important 90 minutes of all time. With a few unfortunate and predictable exceptions, this was Europe at its very best: vibrant, content, multicultural and simply having a lot of fun. It had been too long since we saw a tournament with anything like these vibes and may be some time before we are presented with another. NA
Georgia were a brilliant, absorbing story to try to do justice to. Dripping in team spirit and yet still at times it seemed goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili was on a one-man crusade. And feeling I’d mastered the spelling of Wojciech Szczesny after Poland’s draw with France, my third Poland match, was deeply satisfying. BF
Turkey 2-1 Austria in Leipzig. Brilliant city, brilliant game, brilliant fans, slightly unsavoury far-right controversy afterwards, but basically all part of the theatre. JL
I’d love to say escaping to see Real Oviedo get promoted but, well, y’know. Watching Nico Williams be Kylian Mbappé, only better, was good. That Lamine Yamal belter was some moment. The lady who responded to a query about how quick she could do some vital laundry by replying, in English: “My God, I’m Speedy Gonzales.” But it’s probably managing to get an ice-cream parlour to reopen on a Sunday evening in sleepy little Donaueschingen … by singing Maradona songs at him. SL
The atmosphere. Sorry to people who watched on TV (and read online, thank you, please donate!) but Euro 2024 was a completely different beast in person. European fan culture, after eight years in the doldrums, was back and bigger, louder and more organised than before. The Germans were great hosts and from the Dutch fan army in Dortmund to the letter of commendation from the mayor of Cologne to the Tartan Army a number of countries saw their fans make a greater contribution to the tournament than their teams did. It was brilliant to be among it, life-affirming in fact, and just one more reminder of how the decision to allow a World Cup to be held in Qatar was antithetical to the best traditions of the game. PM
Discovering a Bayern v Heart of Midlothian pennant from the Uefa Cup quarter-final of 1989 in a Munich bar. In broader terms, the importance of international football was really striking and uplifting. To players and supporters, this wasn’t about money. There was attachment and nationalism in the most positive sense. The Euros provided a timely antidote to all that is wrong in the modern game. EM
The large groups of fans in the stadium. The emotion and noise of the occasion that perhaps didn’t translate to television. Away from the football Düsseldorf has a lovely and sombre little boutique Nazi museum. BR
The 30 minutes spent with Gareth Southgate two days before the final. England’s manager had felt distant, weary, even angry for much of the tournament. But when he sat down with journalists covering the team last Friday, it felt as if he was ready to bare his soul. It was a reminder of what a decent, interesting, layered person Southgate is. JS
A schnitzel with potato salad and marinated cucumber accompanied by some Blaufränkisch wine near Warschauer Straße in Berlin, while reading a Bernie Gunther thriller. JW
Biggest gripe
I felt the tournament meandered halfway through but that, otherwise, it was compelling enough. Certainly not worthy of the negativity I often heard online and back home; I do worry that the all-consuming club game, the second-by-second consumption of the circus around it and a nebulous obsession with pursuing “quality”, has calibrated some people away from the international game’s many positives. But if you mean gripes on the ground: intermittently chaotic Deutsche Bahn journeys, the baffling and regressive insistence on cash-only transactions throughout Germany, and Uefa’s inability to control stray beers above the press box in Dortmund. But there really wasn’t a lot: I had a great time. NA
Taking far too long to discover Curry 61, a no-frills but insanely popular currywurst institution in Berlin. Other than that, kicking myself for breaking a toe on day one and succumbing to another infuriatingly catchy official tournament song. Fire was this summer’s Dreamers, the Qatar 2022 anthem. BF
The utterly depressing Visit Qatar branding pasted all over the tournament, barely 18 months after we collectively decided that the Qatar World Cup was the most egregious moral atrocity in modern footballing history and must never be repeated. Paid for the theme song and the pre-match stadium entertainment though, so you could argue Qatar has a hand in the two most egregious moral atrocities in modern footballing history. JL
I only bought a chocolate bar; I don’t need an eight-metre long scroll for a receipt. SL
I have a few … but I’ll keep most of them to myself. Once you’d adjusted to allowing an hour’s grace on any journey you took, the trains weren’t that bad. Food was good, people lovely. I did see a bit of English needle which left a bad taste; but, call me a Guardianista, my biggest complaints came from being a pedestrian in a country still in thrall to the car. Stuttgart is a beautiful city scarred by the tarmac arteries that run through it. Every set of traffic lights is rigged in favour of cars, takes for ever to change and then likely only gets you halfway across the street. And if you were driving to the grounds you mostly had a far easier time getting in than anyone trying to do so on foot. But that said, I had the time of my life, so I’m willing to put it to one side. PM
Teams playing not to lose as opposed to trying to win. Even big nations – France the worst culprits – were guilty of this. Dull, passive football dominated. EM
People will say the trains and they are an abomination. I would add Uefa for deeply careless and half baked admin, failure to monitor travel logistics, abandonment of fans in strange places late at night, permissive stewarding that smiles on people chucking beer off balconies and a general half-arsed approach often disguised, ludicrously, as low carbon green credentials. BR
France 0-0 Portugal was a colossal waste of time. Roberto Martínez did his reputation no good by refusing to substitute the past-it Cristiano Ronaldo. Didier Deschamps eventually got his comeuppance for wasting the vast talent at his disposal. JS
The abysmal security, the scourge of beer-throwing, the lack of thought given to transport infrastructure, Uefa’s general callousness towards those in its stadiums. JW
Source: theguardian.com
