Lamine Yamal magic helps Spain overcome France to reach Euros final
Celebrates Yamal Magic His After First Scoring Fernandez Spain's Side's Man: Lamine Photo/manu Goal Ap
Mike Maignan is standing in the perfect spot. Now he’s diving across to his right, a gymnastic yellow burst, elastic limbs stretching to cover every single millimetre of the upper left of his goal, every entry point blocked. But there’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.
How the brilliant light of Lamine Yamal came rushing into this place at 9.21pm Munich time, a Tuesday timestamp that should be remembered forever.
A Tuesday? If it wasn’t July it would be a school night and you’d think the 16-year-old should be brushing his teeth. Instead his curling thing of wonder brushes the inside of the post and he’s wheeling off to meet a bench full of grown Spanish men.
Records tumbled at his feet like confetti, social media feeds scrolling at a faster rate than the ball spun. They list Pelé, Wayne Rooney and plenty more. Icons and wunderkinds consigned to a second spot behind the Spanish winger whose future we cannot know but whose night here shall live forever.
Yamal’s goal turned this semi-final upside down even 20 minutes in. It would never turn back France’s way, in spite of how well Didier Deschamps’ men started, Kylian Mbappé unmasked on a murky hot evening and looking like himself.
Four minutes from the end, he cut in with the best chance to rescue his side but lashed it over. It only feels a short time since he was a teen in Russia with the world at this feet. Now, here he was upstaged by a player nine years his junior.
Luis de la Fuente’s side, Rodri again a giant at their heart, go on to the final and that feels almost off?
This confounding tournament which has given us some incredible moments but plumbed depths for a while too has its best team in the final. How surprising.
For all of the negativity that had justifiably swirled, the gravity of an occasion can still pull you away from logical places to somewhere dreamy.
As Uefa volunteers did the flag unfurling manoeuvre and you saw the Tricolore and Bandera out there, you thought not of all the rivers of shit France had made us crawl through but of Platini and ’84, Djorkaeff in 2000, Zidane here in 2006, Xabi Alonso’s Euro 2012 revenge. Liberté, égalité, naïveté? Maybe.
Three weeks ago this city had handled an invading Scottish horde of 150,000. Downtown its final game of Euro 2024 sounded, felt, even smelled, nothing like that. Germany’s summer fairytale never blossomed, pruned from their own party by the Spanish in Stuttgart. Here four days later German let Marc Cucurella know all about their angst over his unpunished handball, booing him lustily.
France haven’t done anything quickly since getting here, Deschamps’ tantric tournament thing taken to new lengths. Yet after nine minutes you knew this night wouldn’t be like those that had come before. They gave us a rapid answer to a pressing question: could the right side of Spain’s defence cope with the losses of Dani Carvajal and Robin Le Normand? Negative.
Dembélé found Mbappé on the edge of the box and Navas stood off him for 2.5 seconds. Too long. He chip-curled a beautiful ball in behind Aymeric Laporte and even Kolo Muani couldn’t miss, as Fabian Ruiz had moments earlier at the other end.
In the next 12 minutes, Spain got markedly worse: Navas, looking 38 and more, was booked for hauling Mbappé down, Cucurella was spooked by the boos on the other side, nothing was clicking up top and Rodri had yet to wrestle control in the middle. France looked the best they’d looked and Mbappé was in the mood for more.
Then? Yamal O’Clock. Based on the quality of shots he’d faced to this point, Maignan had prevented 3.99 goals. He hadn’t faced one like this though. William Saliba had stabbed at an attempted through ball and Yamal picked it up. There were seven Frenchman between him and the goal. Could have been 17, 27, whatever.
Adrien Rabiot was closest but just served to add to it all, the dramatic slow-mos which will be watched for years capturing Rabiot’s curls flicking one way then the other as Yamal jinked and unleashed his all-timer, Rabiot’s pre-match challenge to the teen answered.
We were all truly blessed to witness it but Spain were blessed to be level, France disbelieving what had been conjured.
Within four minutes they were behind, the tournament’s best defence taken off its axis by Yamal’s thunderbolt.
Even Navas was rejuvenated, his cross headed only half clear to Dani Olmo. He was all poise and then power, plucking the ball out of the air, controlling it and then lashing one that went in off Jules Koundé but was rightly awarded to Olmo, now the tournament’s top scorer.
Deschamps’ side were truly stunned to the point, most of us were. It’s not merely to save newsprint that we suggest the rest of the half mostly went by in a blur — it did. The most compelling moments were ever time Yamal’s wonder was replayed.
The first 15 minutes of the second half were notable for three journeys across the field: Maignan charging out to make a startling interception, Jesus Navas trudging to the sideline to be subbed and yet another pitch invader, this one making it much closer to Mbappén than Navas had.
On the hour, Deschamps went big, making three changes, Griezmann thrown in and Eduardo Camavinga into the middle too to try to find some joy as Rodri, Ruiz and Olmo still controlled so much territory there. Dayot Upamecano wasted a glorious free header from a corner and Spain mostly settled back and said beat us. So next came Giroud, a final gamble from a man who doesn’t really know how.
The highlight at the death came at the other end, Yamal cutting in one last time on 81 minutes and whistling another just over. When the whistle sounded he streamed up towards the Spain end, this giant bowl’s floodlights pinging off his braces as he smiled. Sixteen. How sweet it is.
Roll on Berlin.