We'd seen this before. In fact, we'd been seeing it all fortnight long. England had scored in the 90th minute, 80th minute and 95th minute of the three knockout matches that preceded the final, and each of them had come after being second best for most part of the match till then. Against Spain here, they'd been decidedly the worse off but as the clock ticked over to 89:15 and Cole Palmer took a runup and swung in a delicious outswinger of a corner, you'd have been forgiven for thinking 'oh, here we go again! They're going to drag the final into extra-time!' 2-1 Spain was going to become 2-2...
Inside the Spanish box, Declan Rice thumped a header goalward which Unai Simon parried straight back into the six-yard box. It flew straight to Marc Guehi who powered a header at goal... where Dani Olmo stood on the line. It's not where you'd expect the team's attacking midfield genius to be at, but Dani Olmo's never really done the expected.
When Olmo was 16, he made a move that no one had ever even thought of doing before. Team captain through the age groups at the Barcelona academy, Olmo was already on the radar of many big clubs when he upped and move from Catalunya to Croatia. Now at RB Leipzig, his is a career that's promised quite a lot, but not quite hit the heights expected due to innumerable injuries... but it was an injury that had put him on the line as Guehi's header flew toward the Spanish net.
In their quarterfinal against German, a rash Toni Kroos tackle had injured Pedri, meaning Luis de la Fuente needed a replacement in a midfield that already contained the excellent pair of Rodri and Fabian Ruiz. His first choice was Olmo. As it had always been -- when Olmo left Barca for Zagreb, de La Fuente had been Spain's U-19 coach, and he never failed to call him up. The move may have had its doubters, but the Spain coach didn't ever doubt Olmo's ability.
In this tournament, Olmo showed why -- barely putting a foot wrong. He dominated games and was a constant menace: his runs into the box, his innate ability to set a tempo with forward-looking passes, and his incessant pressing causing top opponents all sorts of bother. In the final on Sunday, he may have missed a clear-cut chance and sizzled a couple of efforts just wide, but he was still the standout player in midfield. For a man who had once said that "football is won with the ball at your feet", the Euros had been a statement performance.
It would have been easy for Olmo to go wandering about once Simon made the first save, to abandon his station at the near post. Instead, he watched intently as Rice's header flew in, taking a couple of steps to his left. As Simon pushed it back to his right, he moved a couple of steps that side to keep track of the ball. And when Guehi got his header off, he simply stepped once to his left and headed it clear. A clearance so spectacular the Spanish team celebrates it as if a goal been scored.
89:17 read the time as Rice headed Olmo's clearance into row Z. The score remained Spain 2 - 1 England. Dani Olmo had just made sure of Spain's triumph in the most un-Dani Olmo way possible. Ball at feet? Pshaw! Head that one out.
For pulling off one of the great goalline clearances to secure Spain's first major trophy in 12 years, Dani Olmo takes our Moment of the Day from the final day of Euro 2024