Date/Time
Date(s) - July 5, 2024
8:30 am
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Why Spain vs Germany is one of the biggest quarter-finals in international football history
Follow live coverage of Spain vs Germany and Portugal vs France at Euro 2024 today
It’s tough to ascertain the true level of a team midway through an international tournament, with differing levels of opponents faced. But based on Euro 2024’s group stage and round of 16, it’s difficult to believe many people would not think Spain and Germany are the two outstanding sides.
That mainly sums up the relative lack of competition. Of the clear eight pre-tournament favourites, Italy and Belgium have been eliminated, England and France have been unconvincing going forward, while Portugal and the Netherlands have only sporadically impressed.
Spain have been impressive throughout, thriving with the speed of their wingers and rotating almost their entire side for a group-stage win over Albania without an obvious drop in quality.
Germany have been nervier but boast midfield control and a wide variety of attacking options. Opinions will vary, but it’s arguable that the competition’s best four players — Nico Williams, Fabian Ruiz, Toni Kroos, Jamal Musiala — play for these two sides.
Now, perhaps uniquely, the best two sides will face one another at the quarter-final stage.
Euro 2024 has broadly been a positive tournament, although its level of entertainment value in the knockout stage is at risk of being compromised by the ‘lopsided’ draw, a concept that affected Euro 2016, World Cup 2018 and Euro 2020, too.
But there are merits to a draw that has more top teams in one half. You get exciting clashes between genuine contenders at a relatively early stage and a better chance of an outsider progressing further than they ever have — and this tournament has been about the smaller nations as much as the contenders. A lopsided draw can work particularly well in the Champions League when every round aside from the final is two-legged.
Think about it: by the semi-final stage, if you have two high-quality teams and two medium-quality teams, on paper a lopsided draw would mean you would have four closely contested matches rather than four predictable matches. OK, the final might be a little unbalanced, but isn’t a final always an event in itself and rarely won comprehensively?
