Gareth Southgate feels England’s failure to hold the ball against Spain was a major reason for their defeat in the Euro 2024 final.
England became the first team to lose successive European Championship finals, falling 2-1 to Spain in Berlin on Sunday evening.
Cole Palmer scored a superb equalizer to cancel out Nico Williams’ opening shortly after halftime, but Mikel Oyarzabal’s goal in the 86th minute gave Spain a well-deserved victory.
England’s lack of movement throughout the tournament was a continuous source of frustration for Southgate, and Spain put relentless pressure on the Three Lions throughout the final.
And the England manager believes his side’s inability to keep possession damaged their chances of success against Spain, who he has described as ‘the best team in the tournament’.
‘Our players have been incredible, they’ve given everybody some incredible nights. They couldn’t have given anymore in terms of their effort, their desire, their character,’ Southgate said.
We didn’t keep the ball well enough tonight, and that was our downfall. We really played excellent defense, especially in the first half, which restricted them options, but we were unable to counterpress the counter pressure effectively enough.
We actually didn’t use the ball properly until we trailed by a goal, at which point we had a respectable amount of time.
We managed to tie the score, but ultimately, I believe that the physical strain of the problems we had going into the tournament, the extra-time periods, and tonight’s limited ball possession cost us a lot.
“I believe it played a role in why, towards the end, your legs started to tire and you started to make mistakes.”
‘But, you know, the players have pushed it till the 85th minute as the final game. They’ve been incredible, really.
‘It’s very clear in my mind, the game, as I said, for me the key was possession of the ball tonight and we didn’t have enough control.’
In a separate interview with the BBC, Southgate said: ‘I think today we didn’t keep possession of the ball quite well enough.
Especially when we defended well, they press you really well and you’ve got to get out of that pressure and we weren’t able to do that, and in the end that meant they had more control of the game and that can wear you down a bit.
‘I think they were the best team in the tournament and over the piece they deserved to win.’