How Spain Taught England a Lesson in The Final

How Spain Taught England a Lesson in The Final

Spain showed everyone that attacking football is the way forward and it was another extremely impressive performance against the very defensive english team and in today’s video I want to highlight how Spain dominated the game against England and how they instantly took advantage of a change in England’s defensive structure in the second half let’s take a look Spain have been by far the best team at these Euros since they first kicked off in their Opening match against Croatia however the same can’t be said about England with an underwhelming group stage performance and making it to the final thanks to individual moments of Brilliance from the extremely talented players at their disposal with their best football only being played for about 35 minutes against the Netherlands in the semi-final but last night’s clash between Spain and England was a game of two halves and while Spain were completely dominant in possession in the first half England defended really well and didn’t allow their key players to have time and space on the ball the way England did this in the first half was by manm marking Spain’s most dangerous players so throughout the first half rogery was constantly being picked up by foden and wherever Roger went foden would follow his movement on the flanks the fullbacks were covered by Bellingham and sacka in the first phase of buildup ensuring that if the ball went out wide they instantly tried to close these players down and up top if the ball went out to yamu or Williams on the right flank then Luke Shaw and Walker were disciplined in the first half in being able to close these spaces down now later on in the video we will see what changed in the second half because Walker did start to allow Williams a little bit more space and on a couple of occasions yamal was able to get on the wrong side of Luke Shaw that did lead to the first goal but in the first half with England adopting a pretty pretty low defensive block they were able to limit Spain’s space and while they did dominate possession they weren’t able to create any major opportunities and throughout the first half England didn’t really press Spain too aggressively and we could see that with the first 2V1 at the back between leaport Len norand and Harry Kane juggling his position between these two players and Spain were able to control the game because Harry Kane was pretty slow at moving between these two players and they were able to pass the ball between them and move the ball out wide but it did work quite well because in the center even if these players were able to move past Harry Kane there weren’t too many options open to them rodri was always constantly being marked by foden so they didn’t really have the easy ball into rodri to dictate the tempo of the match caraja had little space with Bellingham sometimes being able to move the ball over to yamu but as soon as the ball was out wide on the flank then Luke Shaw was very disciplined at moving over and not allowing the young Spanish Winger to have time and space on the ball it was the same on the opposite flank as well with sacka being very disciplined with his movements out wide onto karella and Walker also not allowing Williams to have too much time and space on the ball and even in the center Mayu and Dean rice were able to limit the movements of Danny Alo and Fabian Ruiz in the first half at least because if Fabian Ruiz did drop deep consistently the Mayu was very comfortable pushing forward and making sure that he didn’t have time on the ball and Dean rice was left on a 1 V one with Almo and did follow his movements quite effectively now again there were some issues with Declan rice especially when England regained the ball his distribution and his first pass was pretty limited and did cost England a few risky moments as Spain’s counter press was extremely effective and they were able to regain the ball quick and then attack forward but because of this defensive structure with a 2V1 with Harry Kane and gay in Stones being in a 2V1 against marata England were able to defend effectively as the ball went out wide to yamu for example Luke Shaw would instantly close down and any run into the half spaces was covered so Kaja would be covered by Bellingham Dean rice would be on Almo and then if Morata moved over then Mark Gay would be ready to close these positions down and there wasn’t too much to report on the first half because while Spain were extremely dominant in possession they didn’t really create any clear cut on opportunities and England’s game plan was pretty clear to Counterattack as quickly as they could however they weren’t really able to do this too effectively and one of the main issues for England in the first half was that they weren’t able to keep hold of the ball when they finally did get a hold of it and this was down to two main reasons the first being that Spain were extremely effective in the counter press so if england did regain the ball they instantly closed down any English player and made it extremely difficult for them to find options there’s an example of England trying to move down the right flank with karella making important 10 m run forward to put pressure pressure on sacka and Mayu and forced them to make a mistake and this was something that was extremely evident throughout the first half and throughout the game from Spain but the second issue for England in possession in the first half was pigford’s Reliance on playing long balls forward into the striker into Harry Kane or even out wide into Bellingham or sacka now every time the ball went forward into Harry kanane Harry Kane basically never won the aerial draw and Spain were able to regain the ball sometimes England were able to put the ball down if the ball went over to sacka and they were able to get a 2v one with Walker aggressively pushing forward and trying to gain gain possession in these areas but even if england were able to get players in these positions they rarely were able to play it forward and find space in behind mostly because as the ball came here then Harry kanane wasn’t making forward runs there was no one threatening an immediate ball in behind the defensive line a lot of times even on the Left Flank with Bellingham picking up the ball and finding Kane dropping between the lines Kane’s movement was again pretty slow and wasn’t able to create any dangerous opportunities but in the second half there was a big change to Spain’s structure and it actually proved to be a blessing in disguise for their attacks because rodri made way for zubba meni in the center of the pitch now the main issue here is that for some reason foden didn’t keep the same man-to-man marking structure that he did against rodri in the first half so for example zui you’d expect foden to just follow his movements like he did with rodri however in the second half foden started to push forward a lot more aggressively and this meant that a lot of times it was no longer a 2V1 between Harry Kane and the two center backs but foden was putting pressure on Len norand more consistently but this led to a lot of issues for England because it left one player in the center completely free for Spain so you often saw either Mayu pushing up onto zubba meni or even Dean rice pushing forward into a much more aggressive position leading to Spain having a lot more free players in the center here now we can actually see this in the lead up to Spain’s first goal because as they rotate and move the ball foden moves out of position to try and close down the center backs and Bellingham is left in two minds on which player he needs to close down meaning he’s not as quick to close down kajal on the flank and as the ball moves over to kavaja and instantly plays the ball forward into yamal Luke Shaw is caught on the wrong side side of the Spanish Winger and it’s the first time in the match where yamal is able to get away from Luke Shaw in a dangerous position and as yamal attacks forward and England condense their defense then the free player in the center becomes an even bigger issue for England because Walker has to tighten his position to cover the Run of Fabian Ruiz leaving Williams in acres of space to finish the chance and put Spain one nil up these first 15 minutes of the second half proved to be extremely costly for England because this change in how they wanted to press the defensive line meant that Spain completely took control of Midfield and were able to create a lot more dangerous opportunities by consistently freeing up a player in the center to move forward and it’s the same pattern that we’ll see when they were able to get their second goal in the 86th minute it was clear that England needed to make some changes if they wanted to be on the attacking foot in this match and the first replacement was harryc Kane coming off for Watkins up top with this change England’s structure didn’t really change too much and their Reliance in possession was still these long balls from pford forward over the defensive line but again these weren’t very precise and England weren’t able to create any meaningful chances from these opport unities and so the biggest change for England came with the introduction of Co Palmer in the position of Mayu and in this case England did change their structure somewhat so Palmer moved as the attacking midfielder foda moved out wide and Bellingham came in as the defensive midfielder alongside Declan rice and these changes very quickly worked in England’s favor and Palmer was able to put England one all with an incredible finish from outside the box after an extremely impressive linkup play between him and Bellingham on a counterattacking situation but in typical Southgate fashion as soon as England Got The Equalizer their mentality shifted to defending and protecting the draw rather than going for the second goal and this proved to be extremely costly because as we saw earlier Spain’s ability to now outnumber the center of the pitch meant that England were getting caught out through the center a lot more frequently than they were in the first half and we can see that in the build up to their second goal and even as Fabian receives the ball between the lines Delan rice is not quick enough to close him down and they play an excellent ball forward into yabal who plays it out wide into kukura and again the position of Walker needs to be questioned because he’s too slow to react to the ball out wide and kukara delivers an excellent ball into the box for Yas about to put Spain 21 up with only 4 minutes left on the clock and after this goal England had one more big chance for an equalizer if it weren’t for an incredible goal line clearance from Danny olmo to secure the lead for Spain and Crown them the deserving winners of Euro 2024 and Spain taught England a lesson in how to approach a European final and proved to everyone that why you may not have the best players in each individual position team chemistry and structure is by far the most important thing and just cramming talented players into the starting 11 with no regard for overarching team structure is only going to get you so far but I’m curious to know what you thought of the final which players stood out to you in this match thank you all so much for the support during the Euros I’ve had an incredible time covering some of the biggest teams and matches throughout the competition and I look forward to bringing you more football breakdowns in the near future thanks for watching

#spain #england #euro2024
Spain were by far the best team at these Euros, and it definitely showed in the Euro 2024 final against England, who kept to their defensive mentality for far too long throughout the tournament. In this video, we break down how the tactics of the final, including a strong first half defensive performance by England was quickly dismantled by a clever rotation by Spain in the second half, with important goals from Nico Williams, Cole Palmer and Oyarzabal to finish off the game.

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Chapters
00:00 Another Dominant Spain Performance
00:38 First Half Defensive Structure
03:30 England’s Lackluster Attacks
04:54 How Spain Took Control
06:39 England’s Changes
07:25 Spain’s Second Goal