Mikel Oyarzabal had been on the pitch for a few minutes when the ball came across from the left. The substitute slid in and poked it home in the 86th minute. Spain led England 2-1 in Berlin, and the game that looked bound for extra time was over.
The goal made Spain champions of Europe for a record fourth time. They added 2024 to titles in 1964, 2008 and 2012. Oyarzabal, a backup striker who replaced captain Alvaro Morata, finished off a cross from Marc Cucurella. Morata later lifted the silver trophy under confetti and fireworks at the Olympiastadion, built for the 1936 Games.
Spain won all seven of their matches at the tournament, a first, and scored 15 goals, the most in a single edition.
How the final went
Nico Williams put Spain ahead in the 47th minute after Lamine Yamal set him up. Yamal had turned 17 the day before and is the youngest player to appear at a European Championship. Cole Palmer, a substitute, equalized for England in the 73rd.
England kept coming. In the 89th minute Spain midfielder Dani Olmo cleared a corner off the line. It was the fourth straight game in which England had come from behind since the group stage, and this time it was not enough. Jude Bellingham’s 95th-minute overhead kick against Slovakia in the round of 16 had kept them alive earlier.
Williams was named player of the match. “Here we are, champions of Europe,” he said. “We are thrilled and hope this can keep going and we can go for the (2026) World Cup.” Yamal called the win “the best (birthday) gift I could have asked for.”
The wingers’ story
Yamal’s mother is from Equatorial Guinea and his father from Morocco. Williams, 22, has Ghanaian parents who traveled to Europe looking for a better life. To reach Spain, they rode on the back of a crowded truck and walked barefoot through the Sahara. Unlike his brother Inaki, a Ghana international, Nico chose Spain.
“My parents have suffered a lot to get here,” he said. “I’m really happy because we are making history.”
In Madrid, fans watching on a big screen chanted “champions, champions.” The day had already been good for Spanish sport: Carlos Alcaraz won the Wimbledon men’s singles title for a second straight year hours earlier.
England’s wait goes on
England has now lost back-to-back European finals. The first, in 2021, ended in a penalty shootout loss to Italy at home. The men’s team has no major title since the 1966 World Cup, and by the next World Cup that will be six decades. England’s women have done better, winning the European Championship in 2021 and reaching the World Cup final two years later.
Captain Harry Kane did not dodge it. “It’s extremely painful,” he said. “It’s going to hurt for a long, long time.” Coach Gareth Southgate, eight years in the job and with a contract that runs out in December, said it was not the time to decide his future. Prince William, who attended with Spain’s King Felipe, wrote online: “This time it just wasn’t meant to be. We’re all still so proud of you.”
