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Euro 2024 is drawing to a close with just the final ahead, where Spain will face England in Berlin on Sunday.
That match will see either La Roja pick up their first trophy in over a decade – or the Three Lions win their first in very nearly six.
One more match, the biggest of all, could of course influence decisions over who has had most impact at the tournament or who will win the official awards, but here at the Independent we’re getting our votes in now ahead of the final to have our say on the best goals, games and individuals, plus the team of the tournament and what our biggest takeaway from Germany is.
Our writers have been at the tournament throughout and can therefore give an insightful perspective on what they’ve seen so far.
Get involved by signing up and joining the comments section below!
Best Player
Miguel Delaney: Rodri. There’s a temptation to put his teammates in Yamine Lamal and – especially – Dani Olmo but the reality is that the midfielder is just a level above.
Richard Jolly: I don’t think there has been one dominant player. There are plenty of honourable mentions for those who have had good tournaments, some ended too soon – Christoph Baumgartner and Arda Guler were two who particularly impressed me, though I wish I had been at any of the Georgia games. Should Spain win the final, it may go down as Lamine Yamal’s tournament, though the reliable Rodri may have been consistently their best performer. A personal choice, however, would be Fabian Ruiz who has added something Spain have not had in midfield for many a year.
Karl Matchett: Fabian Ruiz. A lot of his Spain teammates will get more headlines and it’s definitely arguable his partner, Rodri, is the “better” individual – but Ruiz has had a truly storming tournament. He’s excellent on the ball, has had cutting edge in and around the box which is often missing (or stifled) at club level and defensively he’s the best at Euro 2024 in regaining the ball high upfield, enabling Spain to do what they do best: dominate.
Alex Pattle: Fabian Ruiz. I was torn between the Spaniard and his midfield partner Rodri, but feel that Ruiz has mirrored some of what Rodri has done defensively while adding more offensively, too.
Jamie Braidwood: Lamine Yamal. Yes his age, but also what a joy to watch a footballer who is so naturally balanced and graceful and whose first instinct is to run. But also, his age! How is a 16-year-old doing this at their first major tournament! And that left foot…
Kieran Jackson: Yamal. His spectacular, record-breaking goal in the semi-final against France tips it for me. What a breakout tournament from the 16-year-old. It’s almost scary how good he might become… alternatively, like Rooney in 2004, could this be as good as it gets?
Best Goal
MD: For all the debate about whether it has been a good tournament, there can be no question about the quality of the goals. There have been so many brilliant strikes, to form a huge goal of the tournament competition. It takes a lot to really stand out but it’s precisely for its distinctiveness that I’m going for Hakan Calhanoglu against Czech Republic.
RJ: Samet Akaydin’s own goal when Türkiye lost to Portugal, made all the funnier as Cristiano Ronaldo missed it because he was too busy berating Joao Cancelo. But of those scored at the right end, probably Jude Bellingham’s overhead kick against Slovakia, for the combination of brilliance and the magnitude of the moment.
KM: Although not maybe the best individual hit, it was still a class finish, so that added to the sheer all-or-nothing moment of it, I’ll go for Mattia Zaccagni of Italy with the last-second equaliser to send his side through and knock out Romania. Hard to argue against Mert Mulder’s goal though, which stayed hit.
AP: Mert Muldur’s volley against Georgia was an absolute peach. I’ve got a soft spot for a volley, but for the right-back to meet it first time after the defensive header, keep it straight and stop it from rising, and send it top bins… It was a lightning rod of a goal on a stormy day in Dortmund.
JB: Lamine Yamal vs France. The goal from Euro 2024 that will be replayed over, and over, and over again.
KJ: Jude Bellingham vs Slovakia. To produce a perfect bicycle kick in added-time with your team one minute away from elimination is the stuff dreams are made of. A moment of pure inspiration from a clutch player.
Team of the tournament
MD: Pickford; Kounde, Guehi, Pepe, Cucurella; Rodri, Mainoo, Olmo; Lamal, Kvaratshkelia, Williams
RJ: Mamardashvili; Kounde, Pepe, Saliba, Kadioglu; Rodri, Ruiz; Yamal, Musiala, Baumgartner; Olmo
KM: Mamardashvili; Carvajal, Guehi, Pepe, Cucurella; Rodri, Ruiz; Williams, Olmo, Yamal; Mikautadze. Think Musiala, Ndoye, Kadioglu, Maignon and Kounde deserve mentions too though.
AP: Pickford; Carvajal, Pepe, Guehi, Cucurella; Rodri, Ruiz; Williams, Olmo, Yamal; Mikautadze
JB: Donnarumma; Kounde, Pepe, Laporte, Cucurella; Rodri, Ruiz, Vitinha; Lamal, Musiala, Williams
KJ: Pickford; Carvajal, Pepe, Guehi, Cucurella; Rodri, Ruiz; Williams, Musiala, Yamal; Mikautadze
Favourite match
MD: Much like goals, there have been a few genuine epics in this tournament, mostly involving the same four sides: Turkey, Georgia, Spain and Austria. I’m going for that first meeting between two in Turkey 3-1 Georgia.
RJ: Austria 3 Netherlands 2. Of the games I was at, the Spain-France semi-final was the best in terms of quality. But Austria’s group-stage win over the Dutch was hugely entertaining, played at a frenetic pace, featuring influential substitutions by both managers and shifts in momentum. It was a great advert for Ralf Rangnick. As it meant Austria topped the group and sent France into the other half of the draw, it also had a lot of significance.
KM: Georgia vs Spain in the round of 16, which does follow the theme of what Miguel mentions above, but it was just utterly enthralling in every way you want a football match to be. An unforgettable one to be at.
AP: This is my second mention of Turkey 3-1 Georgia, but it has to be for me. No one wants to see fighting in the stands, but the combination of that aggro, the relentless rain, the atmosphere brought by both sets of fans, the way Dortmund’s stadium contains noise, and finally the football itself… I’ll remember it for the rest of my life. A privilege to have been there.
JB: Having seen all three of Scotland’s game and two of England’s in the group stages, the epics escaped me… I’ll go for Spain vs Italy simply because of Nico Williams and what was perhaps the outstanding individual display of the tournament.
KJ: Netherlands 2-3 Austria. The day Ralf Rangnick’s dark horses stunned Europe and topped a group with World Cup finalists France in it, sealed with a stunning late finish by Marcel Sabitzer. Makes it even more of a shame that they couldn’t progress beyond Turkey in the last-16.
Favourite moment
MD: There have been a few where the sudden deafening roar from the crowd said enough. It’s hard to resist Georgia’s win over Portugal or Jude Bellingham’s bicycle kick against Slovakia but it has to be Lamine Yamal against France for significance, symbolism, timing and stage.
RJ: Not sure if it qualifies as ‘favourite’ but Luciano Spalletti’s press conference after Italy’s draw with Croatia was so utterly bizarre it will remain memorable. But Mattia Zaccagni’s wonderful 98th-minute goal in that game could be my favourite, even if it came with the sadness of ultimately eliminating Croatia and Luka Modric.
KM: From the same fixture as above, the moment Georgia took the lead early on: a shock goal against Spain, the dominant force who hadn’t conceded up until that point. The roar which shook the stadium was incredible and it sparked a brilliant performance from La Roja thereafter, but for a few moments it was disbelief, hope and passion all rolled into one. Ollie Watkins’ last-gasp winner runs it close from the semi-finals, given the quality, stage and magnitude, but that Georgia crowd was something else and represented a lot of what football is all about.
AP: I’m so torn here, although to be frank, I’m cycling through England moments in my head: Bellingham’s overhead kick against Slovakia; Watkin’s winner versus Netherlands; the penalty-shootout victory over Switzerland. They each brought disbelief, relief and joy – yet the balance of those emotions was different each time. In a sense, I think the most joyous of the three was the shootout win, and I’ll go for that. It was a vision of a totally different England than the team I grew up with, and I was so happy for those players – especially Bukayo Saka.
JB: Albania taking the lead after just 23 seconds against Italy. Another incredible moment in Dortmund where it felt like the world was spinning. And that eruption from the Albania fans…
KJ: Ollie Watkins’ winner against the Netherlands. No pre-planned celebration or any of that nonsense; the purest of reactions as the ball hit the net, sprinting in disbelief to his fellow squad members. For a player who started out in League Two at Exeter City, it was a quite perfect representation of the importance of the lower-levels of English football.
Key takeaway from Euro 2024
MD: For anyone that was in Germany, it’s hard not to go on about trains, with the delays actually affecting what would otherwise have been a perfect tournament experience. It’s a great setting, and this was a great tournament as regards attendance. That’s what really makes a competition on the ground. It’s just a pity German infrastructure so often seemed to work against that. On purely football terms, it should have been the tournament that is the last straw as regards something having to be done about the calendar. The fact the players just kept going from the club season had an overtly negative effect on the football played.
RJ: The wursts were the best. Rindsbockwurst, bratwurst, currywurst and many another. The Germans have an extraordinary array of sausages.
KM: How very difficult it is to arrange something as enormous and widespread as this, and how important it is to keep fans and visitors at the forefront of everything. Miguel has already mentioned the transport links; I’ll do the same for fanparks. They are supposed to be for the fans, yet much of what I experienced in them was either for the organisers or merely without proper organisation, particularly a truly horrific decision to shut one on semi-final night…at kick-off. Whatever the reason – weather, technical issues, security, it doesn’t matter – there is zero possibility that it needed to be done at that time. It could have been 20 minutes earlier to allow people to depart in time to see the match they’d gathered for elsewhere, instead of a mad, angry and potentially dangerous rush out at that time. It’s very tough not to be cynical and suggest it stayed open until exactly kick-off o’clock just to maximise takings at the food and merch stalls.
AP: I think the soullessness of Qatar, and the likely reprisal of that in Saudi Arabia, is even starker to me having been on the ground at a tournament like this. Competitions don’t need to be held in “proper” footballing countries like Germany – for all the posturing by Fifa and Uefa, it is important to spread the game around – but they need to be accessible to fans. And yes, the trains in Germany made that trickier than intended, but we still had fans from so many different nations, traveling all over a wonderful country, every single day. And the focus of having just one host meant Germany’s own culture shone through, too, adding an extra layer to it all.
JB: The way Georgia attacked the tournament stood in contrast to how poorly sides like Scotland went out. For the smaller nations at Euro 2024, bravery and composure was almost always rewarded with big moments on the pitch. The knockout stages was found to be the glass ceiling but attack triumphed over defence in the group phase.
KJ: I said it in 2016, in 2021 (2020) and again now – bin off the 24-team format. The fact it was near-impossible to decipher which third-placed team played who in the last-16, while those largely draining final group-stage matches were taking place, was a tad too farcical for my liking.