Why England Just Lost The Euro 2024 Final
After a rollercoaster campaign that saw England defy the critics to reach the final, Euro 2024 ended in predictable heartbreak as Spain ran out 2-1 winners.
Goals from Nico Williams, Cole Palmer, and Mikel Oyarzabal made for a tense but enthralling contrast but, in the end, it was one comeback too many for Gareth Southgate's side. Adam Clery picks his heart up off the floor to examine exactly what went wrong for England in the 90 minutes... and the Euros as a whole.
Goals from Nico Williams, Cole Palmer, and Mikel Oyarzabal made for a tense but enthralling contrast but, in the end, it was one comeback too many for Gareth Southgate's side. Adam Clery picks his heart up off the floor to examine exactly what went wrong for England in the 90 minutes... and the Euros as a whole.
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00:00Hello everybody, Adam Cleary from 442 here.
00:06Spain are European champions and deservedly so having been the best team in the entire
00:12tournament and more importantly, the best team in the final.
00:16But also we should say that while England were second best in this game, I still thought
00:19they did a lot well, I still thought they did a lot right.
00:22It's just that this is a team capable of brilliant individual moments and Spain are a team capable
00:28of brilliant structured play.
00:30And it was that clash of styles between the two teams that gave us a genuinely really
00:35enthralling and exciting final and while this really, really is not the video I so desperately
00:42wanted to be making today, nonetheless, it was still a really interesting game.
00:47So let's have a look at it.
00:56Now okay, actually before we start, I normally do this at the end of the videos, but I want
00:59to do it at the front today.
01:01I just want to say like a genuine heartfelt thank you to anybody who has watched any of
01:07the videos we've done over the last month.
01:10Just this time last year, we still weren't really sure if we had a channel.
01:13We still weren't really sure what that channel was going to be.
01:16So to go from that to what I am reliably informed is the most watched tactical analysis of the
01:22Euros anywhere on YouTube is incredibly overwhelming.
01:29Like if you've watched any of it, even a single minute, it is literally because of you that
01:33we are able to say that.
01:34So that's a mad thing to be able to say.
01:38I genuinely cannot articulate how grateful I am to be in that position.
01:43So yeah, gracias, but yes, anyway, the football right to Spain was set up just as everybody
01:49expected.
01:51That creates a little bit of sort of confusion over what the midfield dynamic is, but it
01:55was more or less a 4-3-3 here tonight.
01:57And England, despite all the graphics being like it's a 3-4-3 again, it was not at all.
02:03They went to a back four Walker and Shaw as the fullbacks and they put Bellingham out
02:08on the left hand side instead of Foden.
02:10But why do that?
02:11Right?
02:12Like England look way better as a 3-4-3 and Bellingham's obviously a goal threat, so you'd
02:15want him nearer Kane.
02:17And it's all about basically taking away Spain's best weapons.
02:20Well, first off, you definitely want to have a four at the back because Yamal and Williams,
02:24while they can go either side and they both provide a goal threat, they do start very
02:29wide and slightly deep.
02:30So you'd either have to have the two wide center backs go all the way out to them, which
02:34is you can already see very dangerously stretched or your two wingbacks in this case would have
02:38been Shaw and Saka.
02:41They basically end up having to drop all the way back and you just have a back five anyway.
02:45Combine that with the fact that Morata likes to drop really deep and you'd end up having
02:48three players marking absolutely nobody and Spain would just dominate the ball in the
02:53middle.
02:54But by going to a four instead, you've still got people who can keep an eye on Morata.
02:57You've got actual fullbacks doing the defending against the wide players and Baka'i Saka does
03:02not have to worry about what's going on behind him.
03:05More on that later and can focus on isolating Kukurea.
03:07But more importantly than that, the reason you go Bellingham on the left hand side and
03:10Foden here was because Phil Foden had a very special job tonight and that was live up Rodri's
03:16arse.
03:17And I actually think this setup is something that England did particularly well.
03:20Like in the first half especially, Shaw and Walker felt like they were dominating those
03:25individual battles against Williams and Yamal, but also Foden did more or less entirely shut
03:31down Rodri.
03:32Like in that first half, and I just realized by the way I had the table the wrong way around
03:37so I've flipped it.
03:38Just don't worry about it.
03:39But in the first half, this was Williams and Yamal's entire creative output.
03:44Passes, it's crosses, it's shots, obviously the green ones are successful and the red
03:49are the ones that weren't.
03:50And you'll just notice they're virtually never able to do anything particularly incisive
03:55in the England box.
03:56They're getting on the ball a lot certainly, there's a lot of sort of interplay around
03:59the outsides, but Shaw and Walker in particular stopped them being any kind of major threat.
04:05Between the two of them, that's their only attempt on goal and it was sort of a snatched
04:08up blocked thing that wasn't really any threat to anybody.
04:11So on an individual battle, they were winning there.
04:14And this again in that first half is Rodri's entire creative output.
04:18You can see he gets on the ball frequently, Spain's sort of first pass out of defense,
04:22but unlike the entire rest of the tournament, where his ability to get on the ball in any
04:27sort of midfield position and play it forward between lines was one of Spain's greatest
04:31threats, you'll notice this is pretty much all sideways.
04:36And this felt genuinely really significant watching that first half.
04:39If you watched our other videos on Spain, we made such a fuss of Rodri being able to
04:43pass the ball forward, basically being the opposite to how Declan Rice was playing.
04:47But England more or less stopped that happening at source.
04:51And this might look like a total mess, but I'm going to do it anyway, right?
04:53If I overlay Phil Foden's heat map along with Rodri's pass map, you'll basically just see
04:59that is a boy following a man around and stopping him having any fun.
05:03But why am I telling you this?
05:05England defended really well in the first half.
05:08Gee, wow.
05:09When's the parade?
05:10There were two halves and England lost.
05:12Well, because these two things here, Rodri getting on the ball, playing it forward and
05:16Williams and Yamal beating fullbacks one-on-one, have been Spain's primary attacking threats
05:22in this tournament.
05:23And England being able to successfully snuff those out bodes really well.
05:27But what has made Spain the best team in this tournament by a mile, in my opinion, is their
05:32ability to adapt to these sorts of problems while they're on the pitch.
05:36And the way they adapted to this specific problem against England was brilliant.
05:43So in the first half, England end up in this scenario.
05:46You can see Spain have five players across the attacking line.
05:50England only have four.
05:51And in particular, Williams has miles, miles of space.
05:55And the reason they're so narrow here and unable to get out to him is because of this
05:59man.
06:00This player has come from the left back area and made an underlapping run into sort of
06:06this channel here, effectively pinning Kyle Walker.
06:09He's now his problem because he's left Saka.
06:12He can't then go out to Williams.
06:13If you pause it right here, you'll see him pointing into this space.
06:17Like Walker and Saka on the fly aren't able to sort of coordinate how they're defending
06:21here.
06:22Like that's absolutely Saka's man, but he's come across onto Walker, so he should sort
06:26of be there.
06:27You need to basically juggle your responsibilities in a split second.
06:30They don't.
06:31And if Williams has a better delivery, England would have been in loads of trouble.
06:34What England maybe should have picked up from the fact this kept happening in the first
06:37half was that Spain were going to be all about positional rotations.
06:42Players going into areas they don't expect to see who goes with them to see if they can
06:45drag them out of position.
06:47And that's exactly where they get the opening goal from.
06:50Now, the beginning of the move, it actually looks quite weird because this is Spain's
06:53back four all here.
06:55And yet Maino and Rice don't seem to have anybody with them in the center of the pitch.
06:59And that's because this isn't Spain's back four.
07:01Fabian Ruiz has dropped out of that central area where Rice and Maino are and just gone
07:06and stood in the right back zone.
07:08Now, this presents a bit of a conundrum to Jude Bellingham, right, because he's playing
07:12on the left hand side of England's attack, so his responsibility is theoretically the
07:17right back.
07:18And that's him.
07:19But also it's not because his responsibility is actually Dani Carvajal and he's here completely
07:23unmarked.
07:24And this happens so fast and it is theoretically so simple, but it's just so brilliantly executed
07:29by Spain.
07:30Like, Bellingham can't not apply a little bit of pressure here, so he gets caught between
07:34Ruiz and Carvajal.
07:35Because the ball into him is quick and it is incisive, it bypasses Bellingham, meaning
07:39that Luke Shaw can't just leave Carvajal there, so now he gets caught between him and
07:44Yamal, who he was originally marking.
07:46And again, because Carvajal's touch is first time and it is quick and it is immediate,
07:51that then bypasses Luke Shaw, meaning that Marguerite now has to step forward and look
07:55after Yamal.
07:56And just from that one positional rotation from Ruiz, Spain have been able to pull five
08:02England players, including the entire defence, along one player, like they're all on a little
08:08string.
08:09And Kyle Walker here, you can see now, has a massive problem.
08:11Now, they didn't do anything wrong here, England.
08:13Like, Bellingham has to go out to Ruiz, which means Shaw has to go out to Carvajal, which
08:17means Gay has to come out to Yamal, which means Stones has to stick on Morata, and because
08:21of this run from central midfield, Walker has to pick up Olmo.
08:25Theoretically, Williams, in that moment, becomes Bakayo Saka's responsibility, but because
08:30Spain did all this so quickly, one-touch passing, straightaway, just incisive football, there's
08:35no chance whatsoever Saka's ever going to get back to cover that over.
08:40So they basically create a 5v4 at the back post, Williams is completely unmarked and
08:45scores.
08:46And that's just how good Spain have been at this tournament, like how well drilled these
08:50players are in all these little clever patterns of play.
08:54At the moment Ruiz drops into that right-back area, him, Yamal, Morata, Olmo, Williams,
08:59they all know what it is they're going to try and make happen, so as it starts developing,
09:04they all make the right runs, they all create the exact bit of space at the end of the move.
09:09But like I said at the start of the video, for all this Spain team's got this great structure
09:14and capable of these wonderful passages of play, this England side remained a team capable
09:20of incredible moments, and they manufacture one all their own.
09:24But the thing is, up until that Cole Palmer equaliser, England hadn't really offered anything
09:29in an attacking sense, like they certainly hadn't carved Spain wide open, they'd barely
09:33tested Simon, and that's because for all the good work they were doing off the ball, Foden,
09:38Walker, Shaw, etc, they weren't really offering anything on the ball.
09:42And I want to stress, right, I'm not digging players out or calling them rubbish or anything
09:47like that, this is just simply how the game was panning out.
09:50The two major issues were Harry Kane and Jordan Pickford.
09:55And I know, I know, I know, I know, I am a goalkeeper, I'm in the Union, I was out of
10:00my seat when he was making those saves.
10:02In terms of a shot-stopping performance, Jordan Pickford was an 11 out of 10 last night.
10:07He was brilliant, but with the ball at his feet, he was causing England major problems.
10:12There's a moment, and Shearer pointed it out on commentary towards the end of the first
10:16half, where Jon Stones demands the ball off Jordan Pickford from a goal kick.
10:21But he's having absolutely none of it, he instead wants to go long, he wants to go direct,
10:25he wants to get it into Spain's third of the pitch and make them deal with it.
10:29Now we talked about it in a couple of other England videos across the Euros, right, Jordan
10:32Pickford's distribution is counterproductive to how England want to play on the ball.
10:38These are all his successful passes across the 90 minutes, right, you'll see he finds
10:42a team-mate in the opposition half, like twice, and in the opposition third, once.
10:47And I will tell you, by the way, of these three passes here, two of them were successful
10:51in the sense that England got ahead to it and then immediately lost the ball afterwards,
10:55right, so he only really completes one pass into the opposition half.
10:59And then these are all his unsuccessful passes across the 90 minutes, you can see so many
11:04times he goes long into sort of the Spanish half or even deeper, and Spain just gobble
11:10that straight up and England give possession back.
11:12And just to go back to the successful passes, right, if you want to retain possession, if
11:16you want to be able to invite pressure on and play through it, you need a goalkeeper
11:20who's going to play the ball forward into this area.
11:24You also need players like Kobe Meunier who can get it, who can turn, who can withstand
11:27that pressure, yes, but the goalkeeper's got to have the conviction to start that off.
11:31And you'll just see, not once in 90 minutes does Jordan Pickford play a forward ball into
11:38this vital area for building up attacks.
11:41Again, don't get me wrong, his handling, his coming for crosses, his overall command of
11:44his area, all the other elements to his game, superlative, thought he was brilliant, but
11:48if you want to understand why England couldn't get any control possession, why Spain kept
11:53getting the ball back, that's a major, major reason.
11:56But also, if you want to understand why when they did get it in the final third, they didn't
12:00seem to be able to open Spain up, I do genuinely hate to say it, but the main reason for that
12:07was Harry Kane.
12:08Like I could do you an entire video on Harry Kane's tournament, like why it's gone the
12:12way it's gone, for him, what's wrong with him in this team, but what it basically boils
12:15down to, right, there's two ways of looking at it, either Makai Osaka, Phil Foden and
12:21Jude Bellingham are the absolute wrong kinds of player to be playing behind Harry Kane,
12:26or Harry Kane is the absolute wrong kind of centre forward to be playing in front of them.
12:32What he wants to do is drop away from the two centre backs and get on the ball in these
12:36sort of pockets, right, and he wants players to run beyond him into the space that creates,
12:41so either A, he can find them with passes and create chances, or if for whatever reason
12:45it goes out wide or they don't get in straight away, they pull the defence back into their
12:50own box, thus creating extra space, so when the ball does arrive, he can come in late
12:55and score.
12:56That's worked brilliantly in the past for England, because you've had Marcus Rashford
12:59or Raheem Sterling, who love to make those kind of runs, it's worked brilliant for him
13:03at Bayern Munich, because you've got Musiala and Sane and all the rest of them, who love
13:07making those runs, but in Makai Osaka, Phil Foden and Jude Bellingham, you do not have
13:12that.
13:13You've also got players who want the ball to feed.
13:15So it means that now, when Harry Kane drops, first off it forces whoever's in the ten
13:19position to go out wide to try and find it, and they get a little bit lost, but when he
13:24does get the ball, or even if he doesn't, the defence can just hold the line, nobody's
13:28going to run beyond them.
13:30And this is what that looks like in action.
13:31England's plan was to isolate Saka and Kukerea, and they managed to do that.
13:35He gets the ball on the right-hand side, he can take him on one-on-one.
13:38And because there's no run from Harry Kane that pulls the defence really far from the
13:42midfield, it means Spain can keep this nice, solid block, defend it very well, they force
13:47Saka inside, and there's just loads of bodies.
13:50But this is the difference Olly Watkins makes.
13:52Olly Watkins is not a better centre-forward than Harry Kane, he's just a different kind
13:55of centre-forward than Harry Kane, and in a team where everybody wants the ball to feed,
14:00his desire to run at the defence and get in behind opens everything up.
14:04It's this exact same scenario that nothing came of for England in the first half that
14:08leads to the equaliser, because this time Saka gets the ball, he faces up Kukerea, he's
14:12pretty much in the exact same position, but Olly Watkins runs in behind and pulls the
14:18entire Spanish defence with him, making a huge hole on the edge of the box.
14:22But this time Spain are on the edge of the six-yard box, which means there's space between
14:27them and the midfield for someone like Bellingham to arrive late, which means this player has
14:32to track that run, they're getting pulled all out of position, so when it does come
14:36to him and he drops it off, there's this enormous amount of room for Cole Palmer.
14:41Like it's absolutely night and day how that situation develops with someone like Kane
14:47playing centre-forward versus somebody like Watkins playing centre-forward.
14:50Like Spain are 10, 15 yards deeper, they're so much less organised, they've been disrupted,
14:56they've been rattled, and from that scenario England can have one of their moments.
15:03Now, 72 minutes, a brilliant equaliser, I was convinced England would then go on and
15:08win that game probably in normal time, but for all they got like a few minutes of momentum
15:14from that goal as Spain sort of gave their heads a shake, they never got control of it.
15:18And for all that Spain are a team that's way more about the structure than the individuals,
15:22and England are a team that's way more about the individuals than the structure, the winning
15:26goal is just one of the most bizarre things you will ever see.
15:32Like this is the XI that England were going into the final stretch of that game with,
15:36right, and it is so full of brilliant attacking players, and this sounds ridiculous because
15:42of how good they both are, but Rice and Bellingham as two sitting sixes, two players who either
15:49haven't played in that position or really struggled in it across the last season, right,
15:54being asked to sit there, they make the wrong decision, they both massively overcompensate,
15:59and as such you get this huge gap between them and the three players ahead of them,
16:05and Spain will just kill you with that much space.
16:09But then, as brilliant the execution of what follows is, and I just need to reiterate,
16:14both this and the first goal only happen because Spain execute these small opportunities so
16:20well, right, there's just two decisions made by England players that cannot be made in
16:27a final.
16:28Now first off, for all the two midfielders are too deep, England are actually quite nicely
16:31compact as a back four, they're all holding a good line, there's no real holes to attack
16:36them.
16:37But for whatever reason, when this ball goes in and Spain make the run designed to stretch
16:41the defence and pull them back to their goal, Kyle Walker just doesn't go with the rest
16:46of them.
16:47And the other decision, and again I'm not digging anybody out or saying it's anybody's
16:50fault, but Bukayo Saka is a little bit slow to track Mark Kukerea's run, he allows him
16:56to get a couple of yards on him.
16:57And as a result, when that pass comes in to Morata, this is the shape of England's back
17:00four, and this is the space that Kukerea has to run into completely unopposed.
17:06And then from there it's just the finest, finest of margins, which a team as good as
17:10Spain are capable of taking advantage of, like Kukerea's able to get that cross in that
17:15much before Walker makes the recovery run, and then the goal is scored with that much
17:20left before it's offside.
17:23And that's how you win finals.
17:26And I know everybody's really down on it, and they're saying it's this player's fault,
17:30that player's fault, the manager's fault, they're all crap, etc.
17:33Like I get it.
17:34Like, we've just been beat in a major final again, and that really, really f***ing sucks.
17:41Like it genuinely hurts to watch those games and to have to sort of slink away knowing
17:46it hasn't happened again.
17:48But just, honestly, as someone whose job it is to figure this out, right, I thought they
17:55were okay.
17:56I thought they really did do okay.
17:58And you have to, have to, by the way, hold your hands up and recognise the quality in
18:04this Spanish side.
18:05Like I know they were unfancied going into the tournament, and a month ago, a lot of
18:09these players weren't considered household names or big stars, but they absolutely should
18:14be now.
18:15Some of these players should be at the very, very top clubs in the world.
18:19So, and I did say I would learn how to say this when we've done the other videos on the
18:23Spanish side, felicidades España, congratulations Spain, deserved winners of the tournament,
18:30deserved winners of this game as well.
18:33And as for England, one day.
18:41Now if you have found this video in any way enlightening, or I don't know, like a bit
18:44of therapy or something like that, please do consider subscribing to us here at 442.
18:48The more subs we get, the more we can do next season, and my God, we are planning on doing
18:53so much next season, so it'd be great to have you along for the ride.
18:57You can get me on all the socials, at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y, I've stopped being hysterical
19:02there now, I'm being quite sort of calm about the whole thing.
19:05Somehow the 442 social's there in the corner of the video, the latest issue of the mag
19:08is on sale now at all good retailers, and the crap ones as well.
19:12And from me, in the 442 Euros bunker, in a secret location somewhere in Europe, it's
19:21been real.
19:22Bye everyone.