Can you hear the music?
EURO 2024 has been soundtracked, so far, by the steady drums of the world's great metronomic passers — and it's hard not to be moved.
This is Editor’s Take: during EURO2024, home of the SCOUTED team’s quick-fire thoughts on the tournament as it happens.
All international football is decided by moments. Germany’s opening game of EURO 2024, against Scotland, was arguably defined by three.
First, Kieran Tierney pumping his fists at winning a goal kick in the third minute, revealing the kind of naïve machismo that always melts into a puddle under sustained duress, as Scotland soon proved; then, Ryan Porteous wielding that same fire to stamp twelve studs into Ilkay Gündoğan’s shin, ending his own tournament but thankfully not that of his victim; and finally, Jamal Musiala shifting the ball from right foot to, somehow, right foot again, his limbs moving in the way a hummingbird’s wings do, teleporting through space faster than the eye can follow and piecing together a balletic slalom from the edge of his own box that released Florian Wirtz in yet another counter-attack that Scotland could only halt with yet another foul. This was a new Germany, that moment said, a Germany powered by the forward-thinking of its young coach and the relentless talent of its young stars.
But through all these moments of story, all these images to splash on back pages, wove the slow rhythm of a drum. Toni Kroos, 34 and newly retired from club football, a veteran between Wirtz and Musiala’s boundless energy, set the pace.
He completed 101 of his 102 passes, a feat made somehow more impressive by his 80th-minute withdrawal. Yes, Scotland let him play and yes, these days every narrative has its immediate and forceful counter-narrative (the video of Kevin de Bruyne being dismissive about pass completion stats went quickly viral), but Kroos’ performance evoked an ageing maestro bowing off stage to thunderous applause. He was the man facilitating the back-page moments, the steady heartbeat of a Germany side with so much verve and so many ideas.
On the second day of the tournament, Switzerland tore apart a hopeful Hungary side 3-1. Again, the moments were vivid and powerful: Kwadwo Duah, only in the squad (for the first time) because Breel Embolo has struggled for a year with injury, neatly opened the scoring to continue the Swiss tradition of announcing journeyman strikers to the world (where is Haris Seferovic? Is he okay? Is he alright?); then, when Embolo himself went through on goal, his leg brace came unstuck and and it looked for all the world like he’d trip and be foiled again, in one last sick joke, by that injury - instead he trampled over it and scored, completing perhaps the most perfect visual metaphor this writer’s ever seen on a football pitch.
And again, in the background of all this, a drum. Granit Xhaka, 31 and in the twilight moments of one of the greatest individual seasons in midfield history, passing, passing, passing. He completed 79 of his 88, made 99 touches (Manuel Akanji, his closest competition, had 70) and created four chances.
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Later in the day, Albania shocked the continent when Nedim Bajrami fired a rocket past Gianluigi Donnarumma after twenty seconds. A moment. Then, a symphony of drums: Jorginho completed 92% of his 130 attempted passes, Nicolò Barella 97% of his 108. In the face of Luciano Spalletti’s majestically controlled chaos, the sheer feeling Albania and their legion of fans had conjured could only wither and die.
Midfielders make lots of passes and the best complete most of them. And when they’re playing against less talented opposition, they’re going to do both at inflated rates. Quibble about the analysis as I’m sure you will - and certainly smarter people will be able to tell you what’s going on, will explain that perhaps there’s more space in midfield, less refined pressing structures, more time - but a pattern, to my eyes, is emerging: nations bringing that let’s-make-unfancied-history force of sheer feeling to the tournament are just being passed to death.
I think the answer might be, simply, that international football is kinda dumb. Or at least, it’s much more simple than the infinite complexities produced by what club football has become: an eternal exercise in game theory between billion-dollar corporations. International football is, for lack of a better word, pure - and what could be more pure than really good passers doing lots of really good passes? It’s a simple, efficient way of imposing technical superiority. It strangles opponents, removes risk, dampens chaos.
Underdogs sow that chaos to thrive, so turn to the maestros - dare I say, the quarterbacks - to remove the sting. You can shout all you want, but the best midfielders in the world have come to play their music.
I don’t think it was a coincidence, then, that England slowly ceded control of their manic first game to a brutal Serbia last night. Trent Alexander-Arnold, for all his genius, is not a player many associate with control. Facing play from right-back, he’s the architect of moments to make you blink in disbelief - but is, in his heart, a student of Jürgen Klopp’s heavy metal, not the kind of steady beat that Kroos and Xhaka whip together. When England needed a rhythm to set the pace, on came the frantic legs of Conor Gallagher. Kobbie Mainoo and Adam Wharton watched on, too young and untrusted.
The tournament will be defined by and remembered for its moments. As with all like it, EURO 2024 will be decided by seconds of chaos, of ricochets and madness and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it genius. But beneath all these staccato punctuations, listen for the rise and fall of steady breathing, of conductors waltzing across the stage, many of them for the last time. Jorginho, Kroos, Xhaka. Their music might not set your soul on fire, but it sure is beautiful.