Yamal's wonder goal leads favourites Spain into final

If this is to be Spain’s first men’s trophy since the glory era of 2008-12, there couldn’t be a better signal of a new era than the youngest player in the history of the European Championships scoring the goal to set them on their way to the final.

- MIGUEL DELANEY

Kylian Mbappe, having finally taken his mask off, will not be showing his face in Berlin on Sunday. The final will instead see a star who may well be his successor, in Lamine Yamal. He had already illuminated Euro 2024 and now he has elevated it, scoring a sensational strike that transformed Spain’s 2-1 comeback against France. It was both genius in the manner of the strike and in how he delivered something like that when his team really needed it.

This was a launchpad moment. It may also have been a moment of realisation for France, whose minimalist football reached its limits. Having told people all tournament to change the channel if they don’t like what they’re seeing, Didier Deschamps may have to do the same on Sunday. It’s hard not to think France have so wasted a generation, to the point they looked a dull side with the talent looking nowhere near the level it should.

The reality is that it would have been a football travesty if this side had eliminated Spain. It would have been the wrong legacy of the tournament, and the wrong lesson. It is better for the game that this extent of “tournament ball” does not progress further. This isn’t what we watch it for. We do watch it for what Yamal did, Rodri’s passing and Nico Williams’s electric running.

The team of the tournament are now one game from being its winners, their new energy complementing the vintage control that ultimately saw the game through.

England, should they get there, are going to have quite a task matching this.

The irony was that this was the first match where France were actually involved in something absorbing, with the first half maybe the best spell of football in the tournament.