France's 'tournament ball' or Spain's ideology: how can you win the Euros?

Lamine Yamal is one of the few players always worth watching at Euro 2024, which attracts a lot of defenders, so Luis De La Fuente is determined to help the 16-year-old see better team solutions. In training, the Spain manager took Yamal aside and told him, "If you have three players on you, there's an area where we have superiority - we must get the ball there, not by dribbling, but by passing quickly."

This is Spain, after all. De La Fuente has hastened the team's transition away from dogmatic possession, primarily through the deployment of Yamal and Nico Williams, but the strategy remains based on the underlying idea. The identity is deeply embedded. Such guidance resulted in perhaps the most beautiful play of Euro 2024, a magnificent one-touch passing move against Germany that transformed defence into attack. It has been lacking in many teams.

The French half is unlikely to have any regions of numerical superiority, which is a flaw in De La Fuente's semi-final recommendations. That is because Didier Deschamps is always offering his own piece of advice. That is to ensure that there is always a dense defensive structure surrounding the French goal. If the Spanish approach is to give the ball away, Deschamps' is to keep it.

"We are solid," he stated this month. "That is essential in a major competition."

It's possibly essential, but history suggests that it's not as non-negotiable as Deschamps claims. All of this explains why this semi-final focuses on a concept that has characterized Euro 2024 and could yet decide it. This match between Spain and France illustrates a battle of two dominant ways to winning a big event. That is, playing according to a long-term ideology rather than playing for the next game. The word "tournament ball" is unavoidable for the latter, but it should probably be connected with Deschamps.

If Pep Guardiola is regarded as the figure who altered club football, the French manager has had maybe the greatest impact on current international football. Teams such as England have consciously sought to emulate Deschamps' approach.

To complete the semi-finalist quartet's place in this discourse, keep in mind that everything is reliant on how you shape a pool of potential generated as a result of Dutch coaching philosophy. All of France, Spain, and England industrialized juvenile production processes that originated in the Netherlands. Now, coming full circle, Ronald Koeman supports Deschamps.

That approach, admittedly, involves far more than protective caution. Gareth Southgate strives to guarantee that his team has complete control over all aspects of competitions that are still decided by a high degree of chance. This includes everything from penalties to replacement times. Southgate discusses being "tournament-wise". This concentration on control has evolved into a constraint that has slowed the entire competition. It has also influenced the discussion about whether Euro 2024 is "boring," with much comments from South America on the state of European teams. Spain is being portrayed as the tournament's saviours, which is a departure from the Euro 2012 argument over whether their possession was "boring".

Although Euro 2024 feels harder since two of the supposed greatest squads are playing within themselves, not everything is due to purpose. Many players arrived at Euro 2024 fatigued. International managers have had to operate within that framework. Teams are thus pushed to extremes, as both sitting deep and relying on established philosophy do not necessitate any further training. Deschamps is still pushing this to its utmost.

While Spain is one of the most prolific Euros semi-finalists in history, averaging 2.2 goals per game, France is the least productive. Their three out of five results are significantly worse than Greece's forgettable five out of four in 2004.

Semi-finalists with the lowest scores at the European Championship.

France's simplicity is also evident in the fact that they have the smallest differential of any semi-finalists between their scoring and defensive records, ranging from 0.67 to 0.2 goals per game.

Deschamps would argue that their only goal conceded in five games was what got them here. England were the only semi-finalists to concede less goals at Euro 2020, and they were not breached until Denmark scored at Wembley.

Deschamps' attitude was shaped by his experience at Euro 2020, when France allowed Switzerland to come back from 3-1 behind to win on penalties. That has now been exacerbated by Kylian Mbappe's lack of fitness. France can be electrifying when their speedy players are allowed to break, which is why Spain scoring first may be crucial to the show.

Such historical comparisons raise larger considerations about what works best, as well as legacy. The latter does matter, but only in larger conversations after winning a trophy.

 If you consider 2008 as a watershed moment, when Guardiola re-interpreted pressing, it is a tight call in terms of Euro and World Cup winners. The Spain team that began a record run of success that year was unique, but those three successive trophies place them among three "ideology" champions, alongside Germany 2014 and, to a lesser extent, Italy 2020. Portugal 2016 and France 2018 were clearly "tournament ball" events.

Argentina 2022, similar to Roberto Mancini's Italy, was a hybrid. It is interesting that it came in a mid-season event like Qatar, though, because it appears that doing so is becoming more difficult as seasons close and physical tiredness sets in. Managers find it easier to stick with what their players know.

This feeds into another dichotomy. The Spanish camp believes that France and England have greater talent, but that their integration into an ideology enhances that talent.

Perhaps this is the true difference. Ideology propels teams to greater heights but must go much further back, whereas "tournament ball" is simpler for any given game, if more difficult to watch.

It is also interesting that Spain 2008-12 achieved higher levels of success than even historic sides of comparable potential. As brilliant as they were, their abilities were enhanced by the techniques. Against that, others argue that Deschamps has underperformed with France. The same can be said of Southgate's England. They have surely disappointed.

That doesn't matter in the moment of victory - as Deschamps also says, "changing the channel" - but it does matter in terms of how a team is remembered internationally and how influential they are.

One reason England has such a large reservoir of talent is that they watched what Spain and Germany were doing 15 years ago, when they looked to France and the Netherlands. While Spain and Germany developed their junior teams in accordance with national philosophy, England and France did not.

De La Fuente thus worked with several of these players at the youth level, reiterating instructions he had given them as children. "I never tire of advertising the national product," he told me. Deschamps, meanwhile, is trying to figure out a fresh configuration for each game while delivering the same message about stability. The vast contrast can result in narrow gaps in games as well as truly compelling clashes.

It implies that on Tuesday, there will be more at risk than just the final spot. There's also the impact and legacy of Euro 2024.