By Karolos Grohmann
(Reuters) – Spain substitute Dani Olmo was not supposed to play almost 120 minutes in their Euro 2024 quarter-final win over Germany on Friday yet the winger bagged a goal and an assist to carry them into the last four.
Olmo, known for his skills and bag of tricks, came on after eight minutes following an injury to Pedri and he delivered in spades.
The midfielder first scored to give Spain a 51st-minute lead, and then delivered a superb cross for Mikel Merino to head in the winner in the 119th minute, breaking German hearts.
Few would have bet on the 26-year-old, who spent many years as a youth player in Barcelona’s famed La Masia academy, to be the man of the match, with hugely talented players in both teams hogging the spotlight ahead of the encounter.
Especially not after Olmo’s injury-hit rollercoaster season at RB Leipzig.
A good start to the Bundesliga season that kicked off with a sensational hat-trick in the German Super Cup against Bayern Munich last August was interrupted in October by a shoulder injury that sidelined him for weeks.
By that stage he already had eight goal contributions across seven games in all competitions. He was, however, lucky not to have sustained a fracture that would have completely derailed his season and even put his Euro participation at risk.
Olmo usually plays on the left but as an extremely versatile midfielder is equally comfortable as a false nine.
On Friday his skills and tricks were needed throughout, with Germany’s game causing his team some trouble.
He put them in front six minutes after the restart, firing in with a low drive.
Olmo then kept calm even after Germany’s 89th-minute equaliser took the game to extra time and his teammates’ energy levels gradually ebbed.
With the game edging towards a penalty shootout he still had one last trick up his sleeve. He moved wide when he got the ball some 20 metres out and looked up to spot Merino in the box.
He floated a perfect cross for his teammate to head in the winner, but after the game his focus was more on Pedri’s knee injury than his own man-of-the-match performance.
“I am completely done, completely empty,” he said. “The victory belongs to all of us. The group is the most important thing. I hope Pedri’s injury is not serious because he is a very important player for us.”
(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Toby Davis)
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