Euro 2024 LIVE: England v Spain final team news as Gareth Southgate considers key change for Berlin match

Euro 2024 is drawing to a close with just the final ahead, where Spain will face England in Berlin on Sunday.

That match will see either La Roja pick up their first trophy in over a decade – or the Three Lions win their first in very nearly six.

One more match, the biggest of all, could of course influence decisions over who has had most impact at the tournament or who will win the official awards, but here at the Independent we’re getting our votes in now ahead of the final to have our say on the best goals, games and individuals, plus the team of the tournament and what our biggest takeaway from Germany is.

Our writers have been at the tournament throughout and can therefore give an insightful perspective on what they’ve seen so far.

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The 35-year-old French official, a FIFA-listed referee since 2017, has been the man in the middle in three matches so far at Euro 2024: Spain’s last-16 win over Georgia, and the group-stage clashes between Denmark-Serbia and Croatia-Albania.

“There’s some corner of a foreign field that is forever England,” wrote Rupert Brooke. Although it is probably defined by disappointment. And if the corner isn’t, the penalty spot almost certainly is. Which, as Brooke was a poet who died in World War 1, rather predated him. But Gareth Southgate has taken England – or one version of England, anyway – further on foreign fields than anyone else.

A first final abroad, the prospect of a first trophy anywhere other than Wembley stands in stark contrast to England’s tragicomic tournament record abroad. A history of hubris and humiliation, ignominy, injury and illness, goalkeeping errors and goalkeeping understudies.

And penalties; conceded by Phil Neville, ballooned by Chris Waddle and David Beckham and Harry Kane, missed by Stuart Pearce and Paul Ince and David Batty and Darius Vassell and Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard and Jamie Carragher and Ashley Cole and Ashley Young.

“It’s coming home” is, of course, the central refrain from “Three Lions”, the song penned by stand-up comedians Frank Skinner and David Baddiel to celebrate England hosting Euro 96 a quarter of a century ago.

The song is laced with nostalgia for our greatest footballing triumph – winning the 1966 World Cup by beating West Germany 4-2 thanks to a hat-trick from Geoff Hurst – and is both a lament for the disappointments and underachievement of the intervening years and a testament to eternal optimism among England fans, unshakeable in their faith that old glories might be revived.

The “it” in question could refer either to a major tournament trophy or, less literally, to the spirit of the sport itself, returning like the Prodigal Son to the British Isles where it was first conceived after adventuring overseas to nations that have proved more adept exponents of its arts in recent decades like Brazil, Argentina, Italy and Germany.

The smiles around the England camp emphasise that, in an atmosphere that is completely different to what it was like even two weeks ago. At that point, there was a risk of a bored disgruntlement taking hold, that could have made this campaign like 2010 or even 2000. It might instead be like 1966, with a chance for a grand redemption of Euro 2020.

While most of the players are just looking ahead to Sunday, some can’t help discussing that defeat to Italy at Wembley. Declan Rice has admitted it will “haunt” him “forever”. That’s only if this is another defeat, and Sunday sees England become the first-ever team to lose consecutive European Championship finals, while Spain become the first to win this trophy four times.

As justified as the praise has been for Luis de la Fuente’s management of a brilliant Spanish team, there was one “severe criticism” from his tenure, which the coach admitted was “totally deserved”.

That was when he applauded the disgraced Luis Rubiales, at the press conference when the disgraced former federation president insisted he would not resign after his unsolicited kiss on Jenni Hermoso. De la Fuente later pleaded for “forgiveness” for “an inexcusable human error” that did not reflect his “values”, but there are those in Spanish football who think it will “haunt him for his career”.

That would admittedly change if his team beat England in the Euro 2024 final, to secure Spain’s fifth men’s trophy and fourth European Championship, but it does add a few layers to this historic match – as well as a twist worth considering.

Watkins may be a perfect product of Gareth Southgate’s England. There are echoes of Kieran Trippier scoring in a World Cup semi-final in 2018, something only Charlton and Gary Lineker had previously done for the country. Southgate’s England have reversed a national trend of underachievement. They have also given some unlikely lads a rare status. Watkins will go from Weston-super-Mare to West Berlin, to the Olympiastadion. Whatever happens – and there is no guarantee he will even get on the pitch – he will remain indelibly associated with Dortmund.

“I never thought I would be playing in the Euros for England,” he said, harking back the best part of a decade to his days on loan in non-league. “You can dream but I am a realist. I was just thinking to get into the team at Exeter.”

In Luis de la Fuente’s first international break with Spain back in March 2023, he stopped a training session at moments that the players didn’t expect. It’s an approach that has become familiar now, but was odd for the squad at the time.

One intervention was for goalkeeper Unai Simon to kick it long. Another was to work on set pieces, since De la Fuente’s predecessor Luis Enrique had insisted he “didn’t have time”. These are rudimentarily pragmatic elements that seem to run against Spain’s ideological purism, the pressing-possession that has dominated the game for 16 years, but that was part of the point.

By contrast, Enrique gave long instructional talks with a giant screen after sessions, which began to contribute to a sense of detachment and drift. This was the great frustration with his regime. It had seemed like a vibrant new era with a new generation, but ended up falling to all of the same old flaws Spain have suffered since 2012.

Here are some photos of the players training ahead of the final:

England v Spain is a tough match to call on Sunday but there is one contest for which we already know the result. The BBC and ITV will both broadcast the Euro 2024 final live, and the BBC is set to enjoy a significantly larger share of the viewing figures.

Three years ago, a peak of 31 million people tuned into the Euro 2020 final, which England lost to Italy on penalties. It was the UK’s most-watched TV event since Princess Diana’s funeral and the BBC picked up 25 million (81 per cent) of the audience, compared to ITV’s 5.9 million.

That difference is the natural consequence of trying to push Gillette razors at every possible interval, which seems to include the miniscule gap between national anthems and kick-off these days. But might that ratio shift this time around? Could ITV eat into the BBC’s giant share of the pie?