MADRID 31 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Spanish football has had a dream year 2024 in which it has managed to win the Euro Cup title and the Olympic gold medal in the men’s category and the women’s Nations League, as well as at the Real Madrid club level, in the men’s category, and FC Barcelona, in the women’s team, won the Champions League, and Rodri Hernández and Aitana Bonmatí won the Ballon d’Or.
The year 2024 will go down in the history of Spanish football as one of the most prolific in history. Saving that memorable 2010 in which Spain touched the sky in Johannesburg, 2024 is the year in which Spanish football has achieved the most sporting successes: a European Championship, an Olympic gold, a Women’s Nations League, two Champions Leagues, a World Cup of Clubs, a European Super Cup, two Ballon d’Ors and a ‘The Best’.
A compilation of trophies, both individual and collective, as well as at national team and club level, that have returned Spanish football to the top of the world stage. And if one title has marked the year above the rest, it has been the European Nations Cup. The Spanish men’s senior team had not won a major tournament since 2012, but in Germany, Luis de la Fuente’s players once again dazzled the football universe.
Spain achieved the long-awaited fourth European Championship after a perfect tournament in which it had no rival. The path of ‘la Roja’ was full of level tests, from the ‘group of death’ with Croatia and Italy, passing through the host Germany, to end with a semi-final against the world runners-up and the grand final against England most talented in recent times. In each of those challenges, she emerged victorious, an unprecedented fact since the tournament has a group stage.
Mikel Oyarzabal’s foot from a pass from a huge Marc Cucurella when the final went to extra time decided a title where the character shown was also key and another saving goal from Mikel Merino in the quarterfinals when penalties against the host were already being prepared.
A success in which a new emerging generation of footballers led by Lamine Yamal, scorer of a spectacular goal in the semi-finals against France, Nico Williams, who made it 1-0 in the final, and Pedri were the protagonists. But also with more experienced players like Rodri, Dani Carvajal or Álvaro Morata, who made Spain an unbeatable team during the tournament and throughout 2024, since Luis de la Fuente’s men have closed the calendar year with a balance of 11 victories and a draw.
And if the Absolute team was in charge of demonstrating in Germany that it is the rival to beat in the coming years, the Olympic team showed that there is talent pushing from below. Spain achieved the second gold in its history in Olympic football in Paris thanks to a memorable final against the host France, which Sergio Camello ended up deciding with a double in extra time (3-5).
A success that has also accompanied the Absolute women’s team. The current world champion has made history again in 2024 as she became the first champion in the history of the Nations League, in which she won with authority (2-0) over France in the final of La Cartuja de Sevilla with goals from Aitana Bonmatí and Mariona Caldentey that confirmed her as the great dominator of the moment.
A tournament in which they also won with ease in the semifinals against the Netherlands (3-0) to obtain the historic and dreamed ticket to participate for the first time in the history of Spanish football in the Olympic women’s football tournament, in which they finished bordering on the medal after a football and physical decline after the group stage.
KING AND QUEEN OF EUROPE IN CLUBS
At the club level, 2024 has brought with it two new Champions Leagues for Spanish football. In the men’s category, Real Madrid once again won the European title with a tournament to remember in which they defeated RB Leipzig, Manchester City, Bayen Munich and Borussia Dortmund on the way to the ’15th’.
European triumph achieved with goals from Dani Carvajal and Vinícius Jr that gave him access to the European Super Cup and Intercontinental Cup, which he also won against Atalanta and Pachuca respectively, achieving that particular ‘treble’.
In women’s football, FC Barcelona revalidated the title of European champion, raising the sky of Bilbao before the Barça fans, who made San Mamés their particular Spotify Camp Nou, the club’s third Champions League and second in a row to show that they are now the rival to beat in the Old Continent.
The blaugranas, led by Aitana Bonmatí and Caroline Graham Hansen, had an almost perfect tournament in which only Chelsea managed to defeat them, and in which they finally got rid of their ‘black beast’, Olympique de Lyon, eight-time champion , in the grand final with goals from Bonmatí and Alexia Putellas.
HISTORIC DOUBLE AT THE BALLOON D’OR GALA
At an individual level, Spanish football was the main protagonist of the 2024 Ballon d’Or Gala, organized by the French magazine France Football and UEFA, with the double of Rodri Hernández and Aitana Bonmatí as the best male and female player in the world, while Lamine Yamal awarded the Kopa Award for best young Under-21 player.
64 years later, the Galician Luis Suárez, the first and so far only men’s Ballon d’Or in Spanish football, had an heir in the considered best pivot of the moment, one of the players with the most influence in the game of Manchester City and the Spanish team. The man from Madrid surpassed ‘Vini’ and Jude Bellingham in the final vote, as well as Dani Carvajal who was also in the pools.
And if the best player in the world is Spanish, the best soccer player on the planet today is also Spanish. Aitana Bonmatí collected her second Ballon d’Or in Paris, the fourth consecutive in Spanish women’s football after Alexia Putellas’ two in 2021 and 2022, and at the end of the year she also collected ‘The Best’ for the second year in a row.
Furthermore, Spanish football once again has the best young talent in its ranks: Lamine Yamal. The young FC Barcelona winger swept all the individual awards of the course, winning the Kopa Trophy, the Golden Boy, best Young player of the Euro Cup and best U-20 player in the world for the IFFHS.