La Liga

Spain do the epic and overthrow France in eight-goal Olympic thriller

Olympic hosts France and Spain played out a brilliant bout for the gold medal at Parc des Princes, with La Roja making it a successful summer at international level, following their Euro 2024 triumph.

Santi Denia’s side have not always done things the easy way at Paris 2024, and it was the same again in the final. Enzo Millot opened the scoring after just 11 minutes after Arnau Tenas fumbled his effort into the corner, and the French had their tails up.

The task went uphill, but Spain turned the tables in rapid fashion. Fermin Lopez was found unmarked by Alex Baena in the box and rolled home for his fifth goal of the tournament in the 18th minute. His sixth, which would see him end as top scorer, followed seven minutes later, after he followed up an Abel Ruiz effort for a poacher’s goal. When Baena curled a free-kick in three minutes later, and 17 minutes on from France’s opener, it seemed La Roja had things in their hand.

And they did for the most part, save from one good save until the 79th minute. As France began to dominate territory though, a Michael Olise free-kick was glanced by Juan Miranda and ended up in his own goal. France continued to push but without much success, until Arnaud Kalimuendo was brought down by Benat Turrientes in stoppage time, which after  a VAR review ended up as a penalty. Even after Jean-Philippe Mateta converted to make it 3-3, there was still time for Turrientes to strike the bar with a fingertip save from Theo de Percin.

Despite now having three central defenders on, used to protect the lead, La Roja still managed to find a way forward. Sergio Gomez laid it on a plate for Juan Miranda in behind, but he went back across goal rather than at it. However when Adria Bernabe gave three French defenders the slip in behind for Sergio Camello to run onto, he managed to keep his cool with a dreamy chip over the goalkeeper to put Spain back in front after 102 minutes.

France would come again, and applied pressure, but the excellent Pau Cubarsi and Eric Garcia continued to intervene at the last moment. And as the Parc des Princes reached fever pitch, Camello silenced it again. Tenas gathered from a corner, and unleashed a brilliant throw to set Camello straight through on goal, and he beat de Percin with a lifted finish again in the 121st minute.

It sealed a glorious summer for Spanish football with a 5-3 win over the hosts, coming out gold medallists in the Olympics for a second time. In addition to Spain’s Olympic title, La Roja now hold 10 international titles, four of which came this summer in Euros at senior men’s level, men’s under-19 and women’s under-19 level.

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Tags 2024 Olympics France Spain La Roja
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