Well at least it’s not Germany. Or France. Or even Scotland. As far as sporting rivalries go, England against Spain is relatively tepid. The biggest football match between the countries was the 2023 women’s World Cup final, won by Spain thanks to a 29th-minute goal by Olga Carmona.
Spain’s men have a better record than England in big tournaments, winning the 2010 World Cup and three European Championships, but it has been 28 years since they last met at a major tournament. England won 4-2 on penalties in the quarter-finals of Euro 96 at Wembley, after the match had finished goalless. There was similarly no score in a group match at the 1982 World Cup.
Their only other encounters were in Naples at the Euros two years earlier, when England won 2-1 but neither side progressed from the group, and at the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, when Spain won their group match 1-0.
They have had more encounters at club level in the European Cup/Champions League, although there the omens are not good, with Real Madrid or Barcelona winning the past five finals played between teams from England and Spain since 2006. There is, however, a strong track record of footballers excelling in each other’s country, from Gary Lineker at Barcelona and Jude Bellingham at Real Madrid to Cesc Fàbregas at Arsenal and Chelsea, and Xabi Alonso with Liverpool.
Historically, of course, there was once a bit of an edge to our relationship. “Brexit began in 1527,” wrote the historian Giles Tremlett seven years ago, suggesting that England’s difficult relationship with Europe kicked off when Henry VIII appealed to the Pope to have his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled over her failure to produce a male heir. He argued that marrying his brother’s widow, though a useful political union with the continent’s powerhouse, meant that they were “blighted in the eyes of God”.
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Spain was then on the up, having sponsored Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the New World and driven Islam from Granada, while Britain was in the doldrums after years of war with France. When Pope Clement VII refused to play ball with Henry’s request to remarry, the king decided to play his own game and left the Church of Rome.
More than 50 years and three changes of English monarch later, the Spanish king, Philip II, attempted to reassert Catholicism by sailing a fleet up the Channel and launching an invasion to overthrow his sister-in-law, Elizabeth I. Bad weather and the tactics of Francis Drake, allegedly dragged from a bowls match on Plymouth Hoe, helped England to repel them.
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As Spain’s empire declined and England’s rose, there were no important conflicts between the nations, the odd fishing dispute aside, save the thorny ownership of Gibraltar. A Dutch-English effort seized the rock on Spain’s south coast in 1704 and they continue to want it back to this day. Generally, though, the two countries found common cause in their opposition to France, as the number of Velázquez paintings owned by the Duke of Wellington demonstrates, a gift to his ancestor for his alliance.
Britain and Spain get on better than most European nations. The Costas have been the preferred holiday destination of British tourists for decades. Their banks sponsor our urban bikes. And Andy Murray wouldn’t have had such a tennis career if he hadn’t gone to Barcelona as a teenager to train. It’s just a pity Rafael Nadal beat him three times on the grass of Wimbledon.
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We’re even united in being fairly unloved in the Eurovision Song Contest. In fact, the Spanish have done far worse: having pipped Cliff Richard to the trophy by one point with a song called La, La, La in 1968, and tied with Lulu the following year, Spain haven’t had a winner since.
Let us enjoy our friendship, therefore, and be reassured that, whatever happens in Berlin on Sunday, it’s only a game. Isn’t it?
