(Football news) In the semi-finals, the winners of this highly anticipated matchup will play Portugal’s and France’s winners of the last-eight match.
Spain is the only country at Euro 2024 with a spotless record through four games after defeating Georgia 4-1 in the round of 16 on June 30. This is the first time since 2008 that Spain has won all three group games in a European Championship.
The first goal conceded by La Roja at Euro 2024, a goal that went to Georgia in the eighteenth minute due to an unintended deflection by Robin Le Normand into his own net, left Spain startled. Nevertheless, Rodri equalised the score at the break, and in the second half, Spain outplayed a valiant Georgian team.
Fabian Ruiz, Nico Williams and Dani Olmo were all on the scoresheet to complete the turnaround in prolific fashion and extend Spain’s unbeaten run at the European Championship to 10 matches (excluding penalty shootouts).
Luis de la Fuente’s youthful and energetic side have dazzled their way into the quarter-finals, reaching this stage for the fourth time in their last five Euros appearances, and even Germany’s Joshua Kimmich has admitted that “Spain have been the most impressive side so far” at this summer’s tournament.
Ranked eighth in the world by FIFA, Spain head into Friday’s blockbuster battle having not lost any of their last six competitive meetings (W3 D3) with Germany dating back to 1998, most recently playing out a 1-1 group-stage draw at the 2022 World Cup.
La Roja are sure to reminisce about their 1-0 triumph over Germany in the Euro 2008 final, courtesy of a first-half strike from Fernando Torres, as well as their thumping 6-0 UEFA Nations League victory in November 2020 in which Fernando’s namesake – Ferran Torres – stole the headlines with a memorable hat-trick.
However, Spain have remarkably never beaten the host nation in the knockout rounds of a Euros or World Cup, failing to win any of their last nine such matches dating all the way back to 1934.
Hosts Germany remain on course to win their first European Championship title since 1996 after they battled past a competitive Denmark outfit to win 2-0 in the round of 16 last Saturday.
On a night of high drama, interrupted by a first-half thunderstorm including a fierce series of lightning strikes, and later marred by VAR controversy, Germany prevailed courtesy of second-half goals from Kai Havertz and Jamal Musiala – the latter is now one of four players at the top of the Euro 2024 scoring charts with three goals.
After a “wild game” in Dortmund, Julian Nagelsmann claimed that his Germany players are “beginning to realise how good they really are” having now progressed to the quarter-finals of a major tournament for the first time since Euro 2016 – Friday’s clash with be Germany’s 19th quarter-final across the World Cup (14) and Euros (five), the most of any European nation at these two major tournaments.
Germany rank in the top three for the most goals scored (10), most attacks (265), most attempts on goal (71), highest average possession (62%) and goals conceded (two) heading into the last eight of Euro 2024, and with a vibrant home crowd behind them, Die Mannschaft have become a force to be reckoned with.
Languishing as low as 16th in the FIFA World Rankings amid their recent woes in the pre-Nagelsmann era, Germany have won only two of their last 11 meetings with Spain in all competitions – their last was a slender 1-0 friendly victory in November 2014 thanks to an 89th-minute winner from Toni Kroos.
Germany have reason to be optimistic of success on Friday, though, as they are unbeaten in their last eight games against La Roja on home soil (W5 D3), while no host nation has ever been eliminated from the quarter-final stage of a European Championship.
Also read: Euro 2024 quarter finals and all you need to know about it
