Lamine Yamal of Spain celebrates with his winners medal and ‘Best Young Player’ award after victory over England in the UEFA EURO 2024 final match at Olympiastadion on July 14, 2024 in Berlin, Germany.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

Spain’s teenage phenom Lamine Yamal won the European Championship and the tournament’s best young player award just a day after he turned 17. Yamal earned it mostly while he was still 16, but he crowned his contribution to Spain’s success by setting up Nico Williams’ opening goal in a 2-1 win over England in the final on July 14, 2024.

“This is the best (birthday) gift I could have asked for. It’s a dream come true,” Yamal said. “It got tough when they tied the score, but I don’t know what this team is made of because we always fight back.”

Yamal became the youngest player to appear at the European Championship, the youngest to score in the tournament, and the youngest to play in a final. He finished with four assists and one goal in his debut European Championship.

Yamal plays for Barcelona, following in the footsteps of his idol, Lionel Messi, after coming through the club’s famed La Masia training academy. He’s also the youngest goalscorer in the Spanish league.

Harry Kane and Dani Olmo end in a 6-way tie for Golden Boot top scorer

England striker Harry Kane finished Euro 2024 in a six-way tie for the Golden Boot top scorer as his team lost the final. It was another individual accolade for a player yet to win a major trophy for club or country.

Kane ended the tournament tied on three goals with Spain midfielder Dani Olmo, Germany midfielder Jamal Musiala, Netherlands forward Cody Gakpo, Slovakia winger Ivan Schranz and Georgia striker Georges Mikautadze.

Kane has now been a runner-up in back-to-back European Championship finals after England’s loss to Italy three years ago, and a runner-up in one Champions League final and two English League Cups. He’s won a string of individual awards, including Bundesliga top scorer last season at Bayern Munich, but the German club had its first season without a trophy since 2012.

Kane is one of four men’s players to have been top scorer at both a European Championship and a World Cup, something he achieved in 2018.

UEFA allowed multiple players to share the Euro 2024 top scorer award if they scored the same number of goals, in a change from recent tournaments. At the last men’s European Championship, Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Czech striker Patrik Schick both had five goals but Ronaldo was named the winner because he had an assist and Schick had none.

Southgate to discuss England future after Euro final defeat

England coach Gareth Southgate said he would discuss his future in charge of the national team after Sunday’s defeat left him once again trying to work out why glory had eluded his side.

England lost in the tournament’s showpiece match for the second time in a row under Southgate after substitute Mikel Oyarzabal scored an 86th-minute goal to give Spain victory.

Asked whether he would continue in the job, Southgate told reporters: “I totally understand the question and understand you need to ask it, but I need to have those conversations with important people behind the scenes and I’m obviously not going to discuss that publicly first.

“Without a doubt, England have got some fabulous young players,” he added. “We have now been consistently back in the matches that matter. It’s the last step that we haven’t been able to do.”

England – with only the 1966 World Cup to their name as a major trophy – have become a force in tournaments since Southgate took over the team at a low ebb in 2016. They reached a semi-final and a quarter-final at the last two World Cups as well as the final of Euro 2020 — when they lost to Italy on penalties — and 2024.

“It’s hard to reflect so soon after a defeat like this,” Southgate said when asked if he would be in charge of England for the 2026 World Cup. “Of course, to take England to two finals has never been done but we came here to win and we haven’t been able to do that.”

File picture of France’s Kylian Mbappe and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo
| Photo Credit: AP

Cristiano Ronaldo versus Kylian Mbappé. A clash of football icons. A clash of generations.

They’ll go head to head when Portugal plays France in the Euro 2024 quarterfinals on Friday, and this heavyweight meeting might have got just that little bit bigger.

“It is, without doubt, my last European Championship,” the 39-year-old Ronaldo said after his tearful, emotionally charged performance in Portugal’s penalty-shootout victory over Slovenia in the last 16. That may have just confirmed what many were presuming anyway.

Still, there’s now a definitive specter of finality to Ronaldo’s long, headline-grabbing Euros adventure that could be brought to an end by Mbappé, the heir apparent to Ronaldo and Lionel Messi after their long-time dominance of the sport.

Mbappé grew up with pictures of Ronaldo on his bedroom wall.

A photo is inevitably doing the rounds on social media of what is apparently their first ever meeting, at Real Madrid’s training ground at Valdebebas in 2012 when a 13-year-old Mbappé stood beside Ronaldo after a visit to the Spanish club where his sporting hero was the star player.

In 2020, Mbappé posted on Twitter, now X, that Ronaldo was his “idol.” And only a few months ago, Ronaldo reacted to Mbappé clinching a highly anticipated move to Madrid by writing on Instagram: “Excited to see you light up the Bernabeu.”

That Mbappé can now end Ronaldo’s European Championship career — who knows, it might even be his last ever major tournament — adds an intriguing subplot to a match that will be watched around the world.

“Let’s go, let’s go to war,” Ronaldo said of the match against France, whom he considers as the top contender at Euro 2024 along with Spain.

He said he was driven to tears against Slovenia not at the prospect of elimination but because his main motivation these days is “making people happy” and he had a penalty saved in extra time.

“I’m moved by all that football means — by the enthusiasm I have for the game, the enthusiasm for seeing my supporters, my family, the affection people have for me.

“It’s not about leaving the world of football. What else is there for me to do or win?” Ronaldo heads into Friday’s game having failed to score in eight straight matches at major tournaments — Portugal’s last four at the 2022 World Cup and its four games at Euro 2024 — and with growing concerns about whether he deserves what appears to be a guaranteed spot in the team under Roberto Martinez.

Things haven’t been straightforward for Mbappé, either, at Euro 2024.

He sustained a broken nose in France’s group opener against Austria and has since been wearing a vision-limiting protective facemask during games. Mbappé has scored one goal and that was from the penalty spot against Poland – it’s the only goal scored by a France player at these Euros.

“He will have to get used to it,” France coach Didier Deschamps said of Mbappé and his mask, “because, to protect (his nose), he will have to wear it for a few weeks — or even a few months.”

Few would have predicted the top scorer at the last World Cup (Mbappé) and the record scorer in men’s international football (Ronaldo) to have just one goal between them heading into the quarterfinals.

But no one will be surprised if they come alive in Hamburg, with the pressure on and the occasion so big.

Mbappé, remember, scored a hat trick in the World Cup final and has been logging Ronaldo-esque scoring numbers in the first part of his career. He’s already on 48 goals for France at the age of 25, and is also on 48 goals in the Champions League from 73 appearances.

He is chasing down Ronaldo’s scoring records at both international (130) and Champions League (140) level and will likely only succeed by showing the same undimmed passion and desire as the player he used to copy as a kid.

As their countries’ respective captains, they’ll shake hands and embrace before kickoff. You can bet they’ll do the same after the match.

By that time, one of them will be on his way home. For Mbappé, there will surely be more European Championships down the road. For Ronaldo, this could be the end of the road.