Euro 2024 is just the start for Spain's next generation

An unprecedented era of dominance, the greatest men’s international side of the modern age.

- KARL MATCHETT

Back-to-back-to-back winners of major tournaments. The Spain side of 2008-2012 gave football a new way of looking at the uppermost elite reaches of the game, and gave all sides to come after them a lot to live up to.

The fall that followed, though, was swift, dramatic and prolonged: Spain won just one match at each of their next three World Cups following victory in 2010 and haven’t been past the round of 16 since then.

After retaining the European Championship in 2012, they won only two games in 2016 and the same number in 2021. A long time in the relative wilderness, even if the latter tournament saw them sneak through to the last four.

And yet at Euro 2024, they didn’t just find the right balance of mentality and technique, they found their ideal style. They didn’t just win the competition, they won all seven matches – only the second nation to achieve such a feat en route to major tournament glory, after Brazil at the 2002 World Cup.

Spain have found a new version of themselves, one which has proven better than all their rivals in every way that matters – and the best part of it is that they are only just beginning. The players, as well as the platform, are there for much longer, much more sustained success. In some respects, it’s difficult not to feel some sort of sympathy for Gareth Southgate and perhaps England as a whole – players and fans alike.

After all, they’ve painstakingly built a culture, fostered an approach, enabled player growth and had a detailed methodology to try to bend everything within their control to their will, crept closer and closer to the biggest prizes... and lost two finals. A brand new Spain side comes along, meanwhile, and wipes the floor clean at their first attempt.