From a goalless Cristiano Ronaldo to Lamine Yamal’s excellence, we’re here to review Euro 2024 with the best statistics and facts from the tournament.
Spain picked up a fourth European Championship title this summer after they beat perennial nearly men England in Sunday’s final, but there were plenty more stories from Euro 2024.
Here, we try and bring you the key storylines from Germany with the 13 best statistics of the tournament.
Spain became the first team to win six matches at a European Championship. And then they won a seventh.
Before this summer’s tournament, no team had ever won six games at any of the seven editions of the Euros with three group-stage games and three knockout games. The increased size of the last three editions has increased the possibility of teams winning six games, but still nobody could manage it.
This summer, Spain won three out of three group-stage games and became the second side in European Championship history to win all of their group games without conceding a single goal, too (after eventual Euro 2020 champions Italy). And then they won all four of their knockout games to boot.
We reckon they probably just about deserved to win Euro 2024.
England won two games in normal time.
On a different day, England might have won Sunday’s final. They rode their luck throughout the tournament and ultimately it ran out in Berlin, but they weren’t far off, and many might have backed them to make the trophy theirs after Cole Palmer’s excellent equaliser.
But in the end, they didn’t win. They didn’t take the lead at any point in the game, in fact. Across the whole tournament, they only led for stoppage time against the Netherlands, for 25 minutes of extra-time against Switzerland, for 16 minutes against Denmark, and for a chunk of the Serbia game. In total, they led for just 19% of their games at Euro 2024.
Only against Serbia and with Ollie Watkins’ last-gasp winner against the Dutch did England win inside 90 minutes. That’s two wins in normal time, and they nearly lifted the trophy.
Football’s a weird game.
The earliest and latest Euros goals were both scored.
Nedim Bajrami scored a completely unexpected opener for Albania against Italy after only 23 seconds in their first group game, the earliest in Euros history, before Hungary’s Kevin Csoboth scored the latest ever Euros goal in normal time against Scotland, clocked at 99 minutes, 33 seconds.
None of the 70 non-penalty shots in France’s three group games were scored.
There were three goals scored in France’s games in Group D, but none by an attacker in open play or even from a corner or free-kick. Two penalties and one own goal were scored, but not one non-penalty was scored from 70 efforts either for or against the French.
Kylian Mbappé’s broken nose rocked France and the mask he then had to wear was clearly affecting him. But those excuses can’t be used by everyone on both teams in all three of France’s group games.
Group E was the first in Euros history to see all four teams finish on the same points.
Romania, Belgium, Slovakia and Ukraine were separated only by goals after each of them won one, drew one and lost one of their group games.
You have to feel for Ukraine, who were eliminated despite winning as many games as Romania and England, who both topped their groups. Ukraine became the first side ever to earn four points and finish bottom of their group in the history of the Euros.
Lamine Yamal became the first teenager to record three assists at a single edition of the Euros (all-time) or World Cup (since 1966). Then he got a fourth in the final.
Yamal took Europe by storm this summer, breaking the record as the youngest goalscorer the European Championship had ever seen with his stupendous goal against France in the semi-final, and racking up a record assists tally for a teenager at the Euros by the quarter-final stage – all when he was still 16 years old.
He turned 17 on the eve of the final, and then got his fourth assist of the tournament when he laid on Nico Williams’ opener against England. His total is higher than any other Spanish player has ever managed at the Euros, and also the joint-most on record (since 1980) by any player of any nationality in the competition’s history.
He’s so young that he’ll have another major tournament – the 2026 World Cup – at which he’ll still be a teenager. Madness.
England are the first nation in Euros history to lose consecutive finals.
More misery for England. After losing to Italy at Euro 2020 and Spain on Sunday, England have become the first team ever to lose consecutive European Championship finals. Gareth Southgate became the first manager to lose two such finals.
For a third consecutive tournament, the reigning champions only made it to the round of 16.
Italy were knocked out by Switzerland in the last 16, following Spain’s elimination at that stage in 2016, and Portugal’s in 2020. That’s three straight tournaments in which the last edition’s title-winners have failed to make it even to the quarter-finals.
So, every time there has been a round of 16 at the Euros, the reigning champions have fallen at that hurdle. Spain beware in 2028.
Cristiano Ronaldo: 23 shots, 0 goals, lots of tears.
Despite going out in the quarter-finals, only Mbappé (24) – who himself went out at the semi-final stage and missed a group game due to injury – had more shots at Euro 2024 than Ronaldo. And yet Ronaldo failed to score a single goal from shots worth 3.6 expected goals.
It was also the second most by a goalless player in a single edition of the competition on record (since 1980), behind only by Deco at Euro 2004, who had 24 shots without success.
There were tears after he missed a penalty against Slovenia, which was a huge chance to extend his lead at the top of the Euros all-time leading scorer charts, so a goal ended up eluding him for the entire tournament – a record sixth European Championship for the Portugal captain, and surely his final major international tournament.
There were as many wins for teams who had trailed at half-time (3) as there had been in the last three Euros combined.
England and Ukraine both beat Slovakia after trailing at half-time, while the Netherlands came back from a half-time deficit to beat Turkey, making three wins for teams who had been behind at the break.
There was only one such win at Euro 2020, two in 2016 and none in 2012. Drama was the name of the game in 2024.
Finalists England’s xG was lower than that of Croatia, who went out in the group stage.
In case you didn’t realise, England didn’t create very much at Euro 2024. They created so little, in fact, that their expected goals total (6.15) from their seven matches was topped by Croatia (6.55), who played just three games, including facing reigning champions Italy and soon-to-be champions Spain.
Czech Republic scored more goals than nine teams in the group stage, but only picked up one point.
Czech Republic managed three goals in their three group stage games – more than nine of the tournament’s 24 teams, including all four teams in England’s group – but they lost two of their three games and finished bottom of Group F.
Injury-time winners for both Portugal and Turkey turned what would have been 1-1 draws for the Czechs into sucker-punch 2-1 defeats.
Despite going out in the quarter-finals, Toni Kroos made at least 43 more line-breaking passes than anyone else.
Kyle Walker was Kroos’ closest challenger, on 98 line-breaking passes, but Kroos already had an unassailable lead by the time Germany were eliminated, on 141.
Kroos also topped the charts for successful passes in the opposition half (306) and successful passes ending in the final third. What’s more, of all players to make 150 passes in the opposition half, Kroos also had the best pass completion rate both in the attacking half (94.0%) and in the final third (90.3%).
It’s almost like he shouldn’t be retiring.
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