By: Benjamin  He

On July 14 the biggest ongoing soccer event in the world, the Euro Cup, ended and will not come back for another four years. The victor was Spain, beating England 2-1, who had managed to pull itself out of a soccer funk that had lasted for over fourteen years.

The funk began around 2010, when they proceeded to win their last knockout game for years. In 2012, after Spain won their second ever European championship, they just couldn’t seem to be able to pull off another one. Additionally, during that very same time period, Spain had only won two games.

This soccer funk isn’t just from a playing standpoint, either. While Spain’s Woman team hasn’t been doing nearly as bad as the men’s team, their achievements were overshadowed by Spain’s officials having even been caught in a scandal. So, yes. Not a good outlook for Spanish soccer up until very recently.

England played decently well for around the first 45 minutes before beginning to falter. Spain caught onto this and played hard. Eventually Spain beat England, the final score was 2-1, Spain.

Then came the festivities.

Among the celebrating Spanish players was the youngest member of the team, Lamine Yamal. Yamal, at age 16, was so young that he needed a special dispensation to actually work late into the evening on the team.

Youth aside, Yamal was thrilled about winning the tournament. So thrilled, in fact, that he rushed on stage to receive his prize for winning when the stage was not even finished being prepared.

Yamal turned 17 on Saturday, seemingly signifying the breaking of the soccer funk that Spain was trapped in.

Image Credit by Cachimberos