Euro 2024 is here! Day One, Germany 5-1 Scotland

Scotland, yes, but no party for them.

And we’re back. I won’t lie, I’m half-Scottish and I did not enjoy that.

First of all, welcome to the Euro 2024 coverage! This is the first of what should be newsletters going out on every matchday from now on. We’re getting three games a day from tomorrow, so tonight’s edition is going to be on the shorter side, what with just the one football match that can’t be called a contest.

If, for some godforsaken reason, you’ve been absolutely starved of Grace Robertson writing in your life, I wrote about the intense emotional response I had watching I Saw the TV Glow, a film I love deeply and am truly furious still hasn’t had a proper release outside North America (I caught a festival screening). I did spoil the whole thing, but I really spilled out my guts on the page there. Anyway!

This newsletter is totally free, but most of these during the Euros are going to be a mix of free and paid writing. You can subscribe with a 20% discount for a year, available this weekend only. Click below to sign up. With that out of the way, let’s talk football.

Germany’s vibes are through the roof right now. “Nagelsmann is not only the face of modern sport”, Musa Okwonga argued, “but the face of everything modern Germany would like to be: shrewd, daring, open to fresh ideas and international collaboration”. At a time when parts of German society seem to be more inward and backwards than we’ve seen in years, Nagelsmann is a risk-taker who wants to play innovative football with a diverse core of players. That Germany turned up tonight.

The winds did blow their way a little. They dominated the opening period, in full control of the game, but things get a lot easier when you score from your first two shots. Yes, they were two excellent strikes, but that more than anything else is what helped them take the game away from Scotland.

When you’re two goals up from very little xG against an inferior opponent, there’s probably only one way this is going. Scotland shot themselves in the foot after that and it was no contest. The defining story was how little pressure Scotland put them under. I don’t really understand Steve Clarke’s plan here. It was a high line with no intensity. Against all of those technical midfielders? What happened there?

I don’t know how much praise we should give those technical midfielders in a game so perfectly suited to let them do what they want, but they were very good tonight. Toni Kroos completed 101 of his 102 passes, which would be absolutely bonkers for just about any current player except him. I have no idea if he can run at this tournament, but he didn’t need to tonight, as Scotland let him vibe.

As noted Scottish football expert Owen Brown said on Twitter after the game, Clarke’s football is going stale. He’s had the same core idea of a 3-4-2-1 with overlapping centre backs since the last Euros. I’m not saying Clarke can’t be the one to do it, but the team probably needs a refresh. Germany, on the other hand, feel new and vibrant. But stiffer tests will come. Just about everything went their way tonight and they delivered on it.

Questions for tomorrow

Hungary vs Switzerland: Looks like it’s going to be 3-4-3 against 3-4-3. We don’t get that matchup an awful lot, how much do the sides cancel each other out? I always feel like a strength of the 3-4-3 is posing different sorts of problems against a back four, but that won’t be the case here. Will it just come down to better individual quality?

Spain vs Croatia: How much do Spain want to attack? Luis de la Fuente is very much a Spanish FA company man, so we know what his ideas about football are. But more than in recent tournaments, Spain have dynamic wingers who can stretch the play and give different options. Do they make use of that, or is it the same old Spain?

Italy vs Albania: Genuinely, what is Luciano Spalletti’s plan? He’s tried different systems recently, but this is the big time. I have very little idea of what to expect from Italy, so I’m excited to see what they bring. Until then!