Euro 2024 Finalists - The Stats

Time to sit back, pour a coffee and pore over the statistics which have seen Spain and England qualify for tonight's Euro 2024 final.

Spain, under former underage coach Luis de la Fuentes, have won all six of their games to date - topping their group by disposing of Croatia (3-0), Italy (1-0) and Albania (1-0) before a resounding 4-1 win over Georgia in the Round of 16. 

This was followed up by an extra-time 2-1 win over Germany in the quarter final courtesy of Mikel Merino's 119th minute header before first half strikes from Lamine Yamal and Dani Olmo cancelled out Randal Kolo Muani’s opener for France as the Spanish prevailed in the semi final. 

For England, Gareth Southgate's side have won three and drawn three matches - netting seven goals in their six games to date. Their group games saw a 1-0 win over Serbia, a 1-1 tie with Denmark and a goalless encounter with Slovenia. In the Round of 16, Jude Bellingham's late equaliser against Slovakia forced extra-time, during which Harry Kane scored the winner.

The quarter-final against Switzerland saw Bukayo Saka sweep the ball to the net to level the scores with ten minutes to go in regulation time before he became one of his side’s five successful penalty takers. Manuel Akanji’s miss was the only blot on the copybook as the Swiss departed and England moved to the semi final.

Once again there was late drama as substitute Ollie Watkins found the bottom corner of the Dutch net with 90 minutes just flashing up on the match clock to seal a 2-1 win over the Netherlands.

With that backdrop on the journey to Sunday's final completed, it's time to look at the statistics - all of which came from uefa.com.

Defensive statistics 

Spanish goalkeeper Unai Simon has kept three clean sheets, conceded three goals, saved a penalty and has a tournament save percentage of 80%, saving 16 of the 20 shots he has faced while claiming 27 crosses.

Jordan Pickford has conceded four goals, kept two clean sheets and has a tournament save percentage of 77.7% with 14 from the 18 attempts on his goal and 15 claims.

Defence wise, Declan Rice and Marc Guehi occupy podium positions respectively when it comes to ball recoveries with 41 and 40 respective recoveries. (Jules Koundé of France tied with Rice at the top of the pile.)

The first Spanish player on the list is Aymeric Laporte on 32, with Marc Cucurella and Rodri close behind on 31. Next of the finalists to appear is Kyle Walker on 26 with Dani Carvajal and John Stones level on 24 ball recoveries - joint 32nd in terms of player statistics.

Jude Bellingham’s 19 tackles are three more than anyone else in the tournament to date, with Declan Rice (14) the only other finalist to record more than 10 tackles. For those wondering, Spanish forwards Yamine Lamal and Alvaro Morata were their highest tacklers with nine each.

As to be expected, neither finalist have players ranking highly in the clearances sector with Aymeric Laporte’s 18 and John Stones’ 14 means that in 18th and 25th positions respectively they are the only two finalists in the top 50.

However, the opposite is true when it comes to total distance covered with seven Englishmen (Rice, Foden, Bellingham, Walker, Kane, Stones and Saka) appearing in the top 15 and only one Spaniard - Rodri. Overall, England have covered 737.42km with Spain on 723.51km.

Discipline wise, Spain's 15 yellows and one red from 83 fouls is higher than the 11 yellow received by English players who have fouled 50 times. The Spanish have recorded 29 fouls in their own half, compared with 17 from their English counterparts.

Passing 

Unsurprisingly, player passing stats see both English and Spanish players feature highly with John Stones (1^st - 521 passes), Declan Rice (3rd- 488), Kyle Walker (4th- 455), Marc Guehi (5th- 418), Rodri (6th- 406), Aymeric Laporte (11th- 399) and Fabian Ruiz (16th- 359), Phil Foden (20th- 330), Jude Bellingham (21st- 326) and Kieran Trippier (22nd- 325) all in the top 25 of passes attempted throughout the tournament.

Of players to have attempted over 200 passes, the 95.5% completion rate of John Stones ties with William Saliba at the top.

With the aforementioned players dominating the individual passing stats, it stands to reason the teams themselves will feature highly. England with 3,986 attempted passes have tried over 200 more than second place Portugal whose 3,643 is 99 more than third place Spain.

In terms of successful passes, England’s 90.3% passing accuracy means they just pip Spain (90%) to third place behind Portugal (90.4%) and Germany (91.2%). It follows them that the same four teams dominate the possession stakes with England (58.8%) and Spain (57.3%) in third and fourth place respectively. 

Interestingly, there is very little between the two sides when it comes to passes into the attacking third (Spain 296 to 290 for England), passes into key play area (208-209) and passes into the penalty area (75-70).

However, when looking at the crossing stats things begin to change. Here, England have completed 21 crosses in six games - an average of 3.5 per game - while Spain have 33 completed crosses in the same period - an average of 5.5. In terms of average completed crosses per game, it's Germany’s 36 over five games at over seven per game which tops the charts here.

Almost a third of Spain's 33 completed crosses have arrived from the boot of Nico Williams (10) with a further seven coming from raiding full back Alex Grimaldo, despite the defender only turning out twice in the tournament so far.  For England, 16 of their 21 completed crosses are courtesy of the trio of Kieran Trippier (6), Phil Foden (5) and Bukayo Saka (5).

In terms of attacks, Spain have had 351 over their six games played with 153 runs into the attacking third while England have had 313 attacks with 92 runs into the attacking third. 

Shots

In terms of shots attempted and shots on target, Spain dominate. With 108 efforts they have tried 10 more shots than second place France with England's 66 leaving them in seventh.

While Los Rojas’ 37 shots on target is almost twice that of England's 19, they have also found the net 13 times - a number well above the seven of Gareth Southgate's side. Both sides have only scored once from outside the area, while one of England's seven strikes was a penalty - Harry Kane’s effort against the Netherlands. 

Kane is one of six players tied on three goals as current leading scorer for the tournament.  Spain’s Dani Olmo is aanother of the half dozen while both Jude Bellingham and Fabián Ruiz are a goal behind the leading group.

Olmo and Ruiz have also recorded a pair of assists each, tied second behind teenage sensation Lamine Yamal whose three leads the way. With 30 dribbles (fifth overall ) he is one ahead of his equally exciting teammate Nico Williams, while the electric Bukayo Saka’s 24 dribbles leaves him in tenth, a dribble and a place ahead of his compatriot Jude Bellingham.

Crunch all those stats together and a pattern appears which could see Spain prevail based on how they have performed so far - more clean sheets, more goals, more attacking output and less energy expended. However, as has been shown throughout the tournament, England have shown a knack of staying in games right to the end.

A cracker of a game hopefully lies in store.

EURO 2024 Final Preview: England -v- Spain https://t.co/b7eMw2ubFCpic.twitter.com/12qMQHa6YL

— extratime.com (@ExtratimeNews) July 13, 2024