a culture clash in the Euro 2024 final, between the two championships that have dominated European football for twenty years

Both European Championship finalists are relying on their domestic clubs, who have dominated club competitions since the turn of the century.

It is a major historical anomaly that is about to be repaired. Home to the two championships that have been crushing European football for nearly twenty years, England and Spain have never faced each other in a major international men’s competition in the 21st century. La Roja and the Three Lions will finally cross swords, with a continental title promised to the winner, on Sunday July 14, in the final of Euro 2024 at the Olympiastadion in Berlin.

Seventeen of the 24 Champions Leagues played in the 21st century have been won by an English or Spanish club. And both the Three Lions and La Roja are truly the product of their respective leagues: 24 of the 26 English players play in the Premier League, while 18 of the Spanish team’s players play in La Liga.

An ultra-competitive Premier League that only the best reach, after having cut their teeth in the lower divisions, is opposed to a La Liga with a strong identity, where clubs rely heavily on young nationals. There are 6.27 Spanish players on average in each starting eleven in La Liga, more than in each of the other four major championships (only 3.29 English in the Premier League).

“These are very entrenched policiesexplains François-Miguel Boudet, Spanish football specialist and former correspondent for Eurosport and Le Figaro in Valencia and Barcelona. At Barça, as at Athletic or Real Sociedad, the emphasis has always been on young people. There are also economic constraints: at Valencia, for example, there are a lot of players trained at the club this season [cinq des dix joueurs les plus utilisés] because there are economic difficulties, which has not always been the case.”

In the Spanish league, players trained at the club they play for average 19.6% of playing time, compared to just 8% in the English league. “The most important thing is not to have players and a pool of players, it’s to make them playagrees François-Miguel Boudet. This is Spain’s great strength, which we find even in the national team since Lamine Yamal is a starter at 16, even if that involves risks.”

Spain’s youth teams have never stopped winning: four European Championship titles in the U19 (under-19) category since 2010, three in the U21 and three in the Espoirs. It is now Luis de la Fuente, who has been in charge of all of Spain’s youth teams for the past ten years, who is guiding La Roja.

England, on the other hand, are struggling to make room for the fruits of their training. Gareth Southgate himself, coach of the Three Lions, has complained about the lack of English players in their championship: “We are more limited in depth than the other selectionshe lamented at a press conference in March 2023. England’s eligible player numbers stand at around 32% [en Premier League]that’s down from 35% when I took office and 38% in previous years, so the trend is clear.” In La Liga, more than 60% of players have Spanish nationality.

This is the price to pay for the world’s richest league, whose clubs spend more than a billion euros each year to strengthen their squad, often abroad. Safeguards have certainly been implemented: since Brexit, clubs no longer have the right to recruit foreign players under 18, and all foreign players must meet a certain number of criteria to obtain a work permit. Eight of the 25 players on each team must also be trained at the club.

But the young Englishmen are still struggling to make their mark in this extremely competitive environment. The quality of British football has spared them the exodus (23 of the 26 players in the selection have never left England), so they will cut their teeth in the lower divisions, benefiting from a high density. The majority of them (19 out of 26) have played at least one season in the Championship, probably the second most competitive division in the world.

A training policy fueled by the clubs themselves, who do not hesitate to send their young talents to rub shoulders with the antechamber of the elite. For fifteen years, Manchester City and Chelsea have loaned between 10 and 32 players each every year, the majority in the lower English divisions. This is where Harry Kane (loaned to Leyton Orient, Millwall and Leicester), Kyle Walker (loaned to Sheffield and Queens Park Rangers), John Stones (loaned to Barnsley), Jude Bellingham (trained in Birmingham) and many others were forged. Before reaching the coveted Premier League, and perhaps soon the roof of Europe.