Mikel Merino strikes late for Spain to end German’s Euro adventure

Euro 2024 quarter-final: Spain 2 (Olmo, 51, Merino 119) Germany 1 (Wirtz 89)

There are moments in life when you get away with it. If Spain’s coach, Luis de la Fuente, is ever asked to reflect on a moment when that happened to him, he’ll know what to say.

Maybe they should start including this question in the coaching licence exams. When you have a player who terrifies the opposition, should you (a) let him keep on terrifying them, or (b) take him off with half an hour still to play, signalling your intent to hold what you have and inviting the opposition to pile on the pressure in a desperate siege?

On a wild evening in Stuttgart, De la Fuente chose option (b) and almost wrote himself into the annals of Spanish sporting infamy.

Until minute 63, Spain had the most dangerous attacker on the pitch. After De la Fuente hooked Lamine Yamal for Ferran Torres, that was no longer the case. After De la Fuente hooked his other wing threat, Nico Williams, Spain had hardly any attacking threat at all.

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With the German fans desperate for their championship not to end here and sheer wildness in the air, Germany hurled everything at the defensively crouching Spain and eventually battered down the door. Until De la Fuente’s interventions, the focus looked likely to be on the other coach, Julian Nagelsmann, whose unexpected team selection fell flat in the first half.

Half an hour before kick-off, the words “Emre Can” and “Andrich” were trending alongside “Orban” in Germany. The Hungarian prime minister had paid a surprise visit to the Kremlin, Nagelsmann, perhaps even more surprisingly, had announced that Emre Can’s “extreme speed” would help Germany shackle the dangerous Fabian Ruiz.

That did not happen in a first half dominated by the distinctively Premier League refereeing of Anthony Taylor. After four minutes, Pedri skipped past Toni Kroos only to be brought crashing down by Kroos’s outstretched leg.

Kroos’s boot had brushed the ball but it looked a clear yellow for the force of the challenge. Taylor decided: not enough in it for me. Incredibly, in the next phase of play, Kroos ended a Yamal dribble by landing on the young winger’s foot with his studs.

Six minutes in and with normal refereeing Germany’s hero would already have received only the second red card of his career. Thanks to Taylor, he still had a clean record.

Pedri’s game was over though. Unable to shake off the impact of the earlier foul, he was replaced by Dani Olmo after eight minutes. Then Rüdiger spectacularly felled Olmo at the edge of the Germany box. Finally, the first yellow. Spain were furious.

Would this spiral into on-field war? For that to happen, you need two combatants. The Spain of Alvaro Morata did not meet fire with fire, the way you could imagine the Spain of Sergio Ramos or Carles Puyol would have done. Instead, having rattled their opponents - and eliminated one of their best players - with that opening terror blitz, Germany were dictating the game.

But having established dominance, they found they lacked a cutting edge. Kimmich, played in down the right by Gundogan, floated a cross on to the head of Havertz, but he put it too close to Simon. A few minutes later Havertz wasted another opening with an 18-yard shot at Simon.

Nagelsmann admitted his mistaken team selection at half-time, replacing Can and Sané with Andrich and Florian Wirtz. But it was Yamal who was about to take over. He glided in from the right and slid a beautiful pass to Morata, on the turn seven yards out. Spain’s captain blazed horribly over the bar.

So Yamal had to do it again. Coming in from the right, showing wonderful composure and poise at speed, he evaded David Raum and again passed - not crossed - ahead of the onrushing Olmo, who got there just ahead of Andrich to almost put a delicate shot into the bottom left-hand corner.

Nagelsmann threw on the blunderbuss, Füllkrug, for the tiring Gündogan. Thomas Müller would also come on as the Germany coach tried to whip up the crowd with a last populist gamble. But none of these changes would affect the game as dramatically as the Spanish coach’s decision to clip his own side’s wings.

In the last 10 minutes, Havertz performed a kind of personal stations of the cross, first missing a huge opportunity to chip into an empty net when Unai Simon inadvertently teed him up, then missing a free header at the back post, and then producing a desperately overhit cross from a promising position.

But Germany only needed to be lucky once. In the 89th minute, they got the equaliser the Stuttgart Arena had been screaming for. Mittelstädt swung over a diagonal ball from the left and Kimmich produced an awesome hanging leap to knock it down for Wirtz, who struck a bouncing volley in off the post.

Spain’s prospects at this point looked grim. De la Fuente had systematically removed all their dangerous attackers. Not that Germany’s team after five attacking substitutions made much sense either. But in fact it was Spain who adapted better to the more cautious tempo of extra time, reasserting their superior control of the ball. Germany could have snatched it.

At the beginning of the second, Musiala’s shot struck the hand of Cucurella in what looked a likely penalty, but Taylor thought otherwise. The crowd was screaming at Taylor again when he ignored an apparent foul on Kroos and allowed a Spain attack to flow.

Kroos was cheered back on to the field like Rocky by the crowd: “Toni, Toni, Toni!” It felt at that moment like it was destined to be Germany’s night. It wasn’t. In the last minute of extra time, Olmo cut in from the left and played a diagonal cross. Mikel Merino - Williams’s replacement - was the only player jumping, and his header floated in apparent slow motion past the dumbfounded Neuer into the corner.

There would be a last German chance as a cross found Füllkrug’s head at the near post, but the crowd favourite put it wide. Kroos’s last action in professional football was to curl a free-kick, Germany’s last chance, into the grateful gloves of Unai Simon. His magnificent career ended here, tonight, after 845 games.

For Germany there is only regret: the bungled selection, the misses of Havertz. For De la Fuente, massive relief. Spain go to Dortmund next Tuesday for the semi-final.