Euro 2024 is a party – but continent’s fractures are there for all to see | Jonathan Wilson
This Germany team could not emulate side of 2006 in a tournament intertwined with complicated nationalism
For much of Germany’s Euro 2024 quarter-final against Spain, it had seemed like a modern rewrite of their 2006 World Cup quarter-final against Argentina. In both games the technically more accomplished Spanish-speakers took the lead about five minutes after half-time, before the doughty Teutons ground their way back, taking advantage of some debatable substitutions, equalising in the final 10 minutes with a left-wing cross that was headed on to the goalscorer.
A German victory on penalties seemed inevitable, the only question whether Manuel Neuer would ostentatiously consult notes scribbled on hotel notepaper and secreted in his sock before each kick as Jens Lehmann had 18 years previously.
