Euro 2024 Final Preview: The Six Main Characters You Need to Know

Just before we reach the dog days of the sports calendar, we’ve got a wild weekend of soccer to send us out in style. On Sunday, soccer’s European champion will be crowned, which is like naming the best rapper out of Atlanta or the best restaurant in New York. The competition is stiff.

Entering the final as the best team in the tournament, sporting an unblemished 6-0-0 record, we have Spain. The Spaniards breezed through the early stages—not conceding a single goal in group play, then dominating Georgia 4-1 in the Round of 16—before two tight wins over fellow behemoths Germany and France. La Roja have scored in every game thus far, marauding through the opponents’ defense and creating the most consistent scoring chances of any team in the field. If the Big Red Machine nickname wasn’t already taken by the 1970s Cincinnati Reds, it’d be an apt descriptor for Spain, who last won the Euros in 2012, capping off one of the best runs the sport has ever seen. (Spain also won the Euros in 2008, and in between those wins, they grabbed the World Cup trophy in 2010.)

Then there’s England. While their women’s side won the Euros in 2022, the men have never done it. Their only triumph at a major international tournament came in 1966, when the lads brought home the country’s lone World Cup, men’s or women’s. Despite making it to the final, this tourney has been a struggle for England. While Spain has netted 13 goals, England only has seven, and five of those have come in the 80th minute or later—which, on the one hand, shows their aptitude for finding the goal when they really need it, but also demonstrates how hard it’s been for them to score during the majority of the game. Their most recent thriller came from the foot of Ollie Watkins, who subbed on for his first action in nearly three weeks and sent the Netherlands home with a 90th-minute stunner, instantly minting him as a proper British legend.

Whether you pronounce Barcelona with a th-sound, sign your emails with “Cheers”—we get it, you studied abroad—or just need something to do on Sunday, this showdown between two old world stalwarts promises to be one of the highlights of the summer. Here’s who we expect to make some noise in the Euro 2024 final.

Lamine Yamal

The unquestioned star of the tournament. The leader of soccer’s next generation. The…pride of 2007? That’s right, the most exciting player on the most exciting team is all of 16 years old. In fact, Yamal’s teammate, Jesús Navas, is older than Yamal’s dad. (And yes, Yamal rocks the broccoli perm.) Adorably, the baby-faced baller’s first brush with greatness came when he was an actual infant. As part of a promotional calendar for UNICEF, a young Yamal posed with Lionel Messi. The photo has circulated around the world and back over the last few days, with many quipping that it is the origin story for Yamal’s own GOAT arc. When you can do stuff like this, making yourself the youngest person ever to score at the Euros, it’s not out of the question. He also leads the team in assists, for good measure.

Álvaro Morata

This is Morata’s third Euro appearance, and he has scored in every one of them, making him the only Spanish player to accomplish that feat. (Only 11 other guys—including titans of the sport like Cristiano Ronaldo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and Thierry Henry—have done the same.) Morata, who captains the Spanish team, already has league titles and Champions League titles from his time at Real Madrid, but international team glory has mostly eluded him. He also holds Spain’s all-time record for Euro goals, and still just 31 years old, it’s not like his career is winding down, either. He just needs to avoid any more freak accidents, like after the semifinal, when a security guard crashed into him trying to chase down an unruly fan.

Rodri

Probably the best all-around player on the pitch will be wearing Spain’s No. 16 shirt. The defensive midfielder is part of the Manchester City death squad, and is an absolute wizard of distribution. Rodri has completed the most passes of anyone on Spain’s roster, doing so with an unbelievable 93% completion rate. With Pedri, his 21-year-old wunderkind midfield partner, ruled out after suffering a nasty knee sprain against Germany, all eyes are on Rodri to initiate Spain’s attack.

Jude Bellingham

Bellingham is the closest thing England has to a Yamal of their own. At 21 years of age, with a Skims endorsement already in tow, it’s easy to see why so many people are drawn to Bellingham. He’s also very, very good at soccer, which helps, and England would not be here without him. In the dying moments of their Round of 16 game against Slovakia, Bellingham hit the strike of a lifetime, an overhead kick that saved his nation from an embarrassing loss.

Seconds later, he created some light controversy with an emphatic crotch-based celebration. This earned the Englishman a slap on the wrist from UEFA, European soccer’s governing body. The other part of that celebration—facing the crowd and shouting “Who else?”—was much less vulgar but similarly iconic. He explained it by saying, “Playing for England is an enjoyable feeling, but it is also a lot of pressure, and you hear people talk a lot of rubbish.” Talk your rubbish, Jude.

Harry Kane

A salt of the earth bloke who loves golf, steak and chips, and his family, Harry Kane is the face of the team. He’s also the most prolific goal scorer in the squad’s history, and has added three goals to his ledger at Euro 2024, including the extra-time winner that felled Slovakia. Kane angered a huge contingent of North London when he left Tottenham last summer to join Bayern Munich in the most expensive signing the German league has ever seen. Surely they will forgive him if he can lead England to victory on Sunday with a goal or two.

Gareth Southgate

Southgate is England’s manager, and also one of the most curious cases in the world. Objectively, he’s been quite good, piloting the team to the World Cup semis in 2018, the Euro final in 2021, and the doorstep of a championship once again this time around. Subjectively, though, lots of people dislike his style of play, which is very conservative and far from sexy. When watching England, you typically get the sense that they’re playing not to lose rather than playing to win. But hey, it’s gotten them this far. One more win—whether it comes by a 1-0 score after yet another stoppage time flourish, or in a 0-0 war of attrition that ends in penalties—and Southgate will have the last laugh.