What football can learn from Spain (and it's not playing the Harry Kane way)

Fabian Ruiz of Spain was one the star players at the Euros.

In the bar of my Lanzarote hotel, the off-duty staff and those whose work seemed to require them to hang around the big TV were united in a gasp which became a roar which turned into wild applause. This was their team, Spain, versus Euro 2024’s hosts, Germany, in the game that should have been the final, but the acclaim wasn’t for one of La Roja’s goals.

Fabian Ruiz was on the halfway line when Mikel Merino offered him what just about every footballer from just about every other country would call a hospital pass. But maybe “pase hospitales” has no actual meaning in Spain.

When the ball reached Fabian he already had three Germans surrounding him. It looked like a classic wildlife ambush. Toni Kross, the old lion, was lolloping over to deliver the fatal swipe. There seemed to be nowhere for Fabian to go.

Dani Olmo poses with the trophy.

As if resigned to his fate, he motioned back towards his own goal. His pursuers followed but in their bloodlust they’d got complacent and a gap appeared. In an instant the playmaker was out the other side and away, igniting another menacing attack.

Now we are used to Spanish players accepting the ball in tight situations. Think Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Sergio Busquets. But did the tiki taka triumvirate’s reign in Spain fall mainly in the centre circle? Did they play keep-ball there to an obsessional, insane degree? And on the invisible veranda, with hammocks swinging and skin leathering, when asked if they might consider giving someone else a turn further up the pitch, was the response always: “Manana”?

Of course this wasn’t how tiki taka went, rather how the rest of the football world has bastardised it subsequently. The Spain team which won two Euros and the World Cup were brilliant. But this Spain team are threatening to be brilliant too, with a markedly different style. Their watchword is definitely “Vamos!”

They are more direct, more urgent. The trio of Fabian, the outrageous dummy guy, Rodri and Dani Olmo could probably pass you to death but they like to surge to the edge of the opposition box and score low and unerringly into the corner of the net.

Teenager Lamine Yamal lit up the competition.

Shot’s off? Then the ball can be swung out to exciting young wingers which Xavi & Co didn’t have at their disposal (but, let’s be honest, at the time didn’t actually need).

Most major tournaments produce change and innovation for the game at large. In 1970 out of Mexico came red and yellow cards. More recently, the free-kick foam and – bloody hell – VAR. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if via Spain these Euros, rather than gimmickry and dubious technological whizzbangs, bequeathed something as deep and meaningful to football as a winger renaissance?

Younger fans must be heartily sick of my generation dribbling into their Tartan Special about – yes – dribbling. How here as much as anywhere it’s a lost art like pyramid-building and, more recently, map-reading and letter-writing. How teams weren’t allowed to take the field without two wingers, a rule enforceable by a combination of the police super, Tiny Wharton and the Secretary of State for Scotland. How many of the wide men were wide in the other sense, rascally and radge-like. How they were invariably short, scuttling and bandy-legged (apart from Partick Thistle’s Denis McQuade who was tall, languid and academic). And how winghood was an analogue joy, the secret of happiness.

It could be again if football’s prospects were to be inspired by Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams and all the Guardiola groupies were to allow them to run wild and free on the flanks. Pep has a lot to answer for. He was the architect of tiki taka at Barcelona where, thanks to Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets, it was mesmerising. But in England – and Scotland – copyist coaches have their teams playing Barca’s possession football without the explosions.

Either they’ve forgotten that crucial means-to-an-end element of tiki taka or they don’t have the men capable of detonating the play and so continue with the tedious Spirograph passing sequences hoping a goal might arise either through boring the opposition senseless or sending them to sleep.

Fabian, Rodri and Olmo can also inspire. Just about every time they took possession of the ball at Euro 2024 they were progressive thinkers, eyes straight ahead and prodding the ball forward, looking to do something thrilling with it. How fed up are you of midfielders – ostensibly the creative department – passing sideways, passing behind halfway where there’s no threat, passing to improve their personal stats, collected and collated by a new growth industry which has barnacled itself to football but cannot articulate those moments when the game is magical? Not as fed up as me.

Fabian, Rodri and Olmo claimed all the midfield places in Uefa’s official team of the tournament. All told, six Spaniards were selected for the “Best of … ”. Ten different players shared Spain’s goals – a record – and all of the strikes came from open play. The team had no need for penalty shootouts, penalties during the course of matches or penalties which weren’t penalties like the one awarded to Harry Kane in England’s semi-final.

While for Spain the sum is greater than the parts – although what parts! – England continue to deify individuals who turn out to be false gods. By the end for him, no longer able to run, David Beckham tried to turn the game into golf: the great man poised over yet another free-kick, demanding hush and reverence. So it is with Kane now, falling like a bag of cement for desperate dead-ball opportunity.

Spain’s victory was one for those who like to see the ball in motion, not least out on the wings – a victory for football. Vamos!