80 min: Germany bring on Thomas Muller for Jonathan Tah. Robert Andrich moves back into defence. Spain subs: Merino and Oryazabal on for Williams and Morata.
Key events
80 min: Germany bring on Thomas Muller for Jonathan Tah. Robert Andrich moves back into defence. Spain subs: Merino and Oryazabal on for Williams and Morata.
79 min: That was desperately unlucky. Fulkrug showed impressive strength and very nifty footwork to hold off Nacho and get that shot away, only to see his effort hit the post. Truth be told, there wasn’t much else he could do to get it on target.
76 min: Chance! Florian Wirtz gets the better of Cucurella and squares the ball from the inside right towardds the near post. With Nacho all over him like a cheap rug, Fulkrug sticks out a leg and steer the ball goalwards. It hits the foot of the upright and rolls clear.
74 min: Mittlestadt is booked for a injudicious lunge on Torres and will miss the semi-final if Germany make it. Moments later, Torres joins him in the book for something resembling a rugby tackle on Jamal Musiala. Robert Andrich has also been booked since coming on and will also miss any semi-final Germany might find themselves in.
73 min: Carvajal dives in to block a Havertz shot in the Spain penalty area.
70 min: Fulkrug tees up Robert Andrich on the edge of the Spoain penalty area after excellent work by Wirtz and Havertz. Simon flings himself low to his left to keep out the substitute’s low shot, which was on target. It’s a good save, nothing more.
67 min: Having been lucky to escape two bookings already, Toni Kroos finally sees yellow for a cynical tug on Dani Olmo, who was in the process of showing him a clean pair of heels as he ran through the centre.
Moments previously, Dani Carvajal had denied Germany with a crucial interception to stop Havertz teeing up Fulkrug.
66 min: Fulkrug heads over from a Toni Kroos corner as Germany continue their hunt for an equaliser. They’ve responded well to going behind.
63 min: A constant menace down the right for Spain, Lamine Yamal is brought off and replaced by Ferran Torres. The 16-year-old doesn’t look hugely impressed with his manager’s decision to substitute him.
61 min: Olmo’s finish for the goal was extremely precise and the ball was dispatched into the bottom left-hand corner, leaving Neuer with little or no chance of keeping it out.
60 min: Germany have made more changes, bringing on Maximilian Mittlestadt and Noclas Fulkrug for David Raum and Ilkay Gundogan.
58 min: Another lovely move from Spain as Germany press forward leaving gaps at the back. Olmo tries to pick out the unmarked Williams with a low ball across the penalty area but Rudiger makes a crucial interception.
55 min: The hosts are behind, fighting for their Euro 2024 lives and now we have a game on their hands. Germany’s dfefending for that goal was very poor. Both David Raum and Jonathan Tah allowed Yamal to play the ball across the face of their penalty area completely unopposed and to make matters worse, nobody had tracked Dani Olmo’s run. Yes, it was he and not Ruiz who scored – my head is gone!!!
Spain lead! The ball’s played down the inside right to Lamine Yamal, he cuts inside with Jonathan Tah and Raum backpedalling in front of him. The teenager then rolls a perfectly weighted ball across the face of the Germany penalty area. Dani Olmo’s run was well timed and he swept the ball past Manuel Neuer without breaking stride.
50 min: Moments after the half restarted, when some of us were still trying to figure out who Germany had taken off, Florian Wirtz was straight into the action. He caught Aymeric Laporte dawdling on the ball while mulling over a backpass, dived in and tried to steal it.
In doing so, he forced the panicking Spanish defender to kick the ground as he tried to stop himself being robbed of the ball. Wirtz was penalised, despite doing nothing wrong. Hold on, there’s been a goal … and Spain are in front.
48 min: Morata receives a pass from Yamal with his back to goal, then spins his man and shoots. Over the bar.
46 min: I got slightly ahead of myself there, sending France out for the second half instead of Germany – that’s fixed now.
Play resumes and we’ve a few changes in personnel to report. Nacho is on for Spain, with red card-waiting-to-happen Robin Le Normand making way. For Germany, Robert Andrich and Florian Wirtz are on for Emre Can and Leroy Sane.
We reach the break in a reasonably interesting match that is nowhere near as good as we all hoped it would be. One presumes both managers will be happy enough, even though neither side has been anywhere near as ruthless as we know they can be.
Goalscoring chances have been at a premium, ALvaro Morata has been anonymous and after all the talk about how brilliant he is that greeted Jamal Musiala’s performance against Scotland, I’m not sure he even touched the ball in that first half.
45+2 min: Cucerella fouls Gundogan from behind and the German goes to ground as if he’s been picked off by a sniper nesting on the roof of the stand. Germany have another free-kick but nothing comes of it. It’s half-time.
45 min: Spain are in the ascendancy at the moment, without mustering much in the way of a goal threat. As things stand, Germany goalkeeper Manuel Neuer has had a much easier evening than his opposite number, Unai Simon.
43 min: Cutting in from the left, Nico Williams eschews the option of taking on and beating Rudiger again, electing instead to wildly overhit a cross from the left and put the ball out for a Germany throw-in on the far side.
40 min: Replays suggest that Robin Le Normand was very unjustly booked for that foul on Gundogan a while back. The German captain appeared to throw himself to the ground but perhaps mindful of the fact that the Spain centre-back had just entered his bad books a few seconds previously, Anthony Taylor couldn’t get the yellow card out quickly enough. Harsh.
38 min: Williams takes on Sane down the left jinking, this way, that way and then this way again as he surveys his options in the German penalty area. There aren’t any, prompting him to wave his hands in the air in frustration.
36 min: Olmo plays Williams in behind with an excellent pass inside Kimmich. The winger bears down on the German goal, skipping past Rudiger in the process, then forces a save out of Neuer at his near post. Like Kimmich before him, he’s also flagged for offside. I’m not so sure he was but it doesn’t matter.
35 min: Havertz takes down a low diagonal and fires straight at Simon.
34 min: Kimmich is played in behind Williams by Havertz and drills a low cross across the Spain penalty area. Simon cuts it out before it can reach Leroy Sane. Kimmich had strayed offside and the flag goes up.
33 min: As yet, this match has failed to live up to the hype but it’s absorbing enough. A goal for either side before the break would liven proceedings up no end.
31 min: Emre Can is penalised for fouling Lamine Yamal and is lucky to avoid the yellow card Alvaro Morata unsuccessfully lobbied Anthony Taylor to brandish in his direction.
30 min: Now he needs to be extra careful, having just been booked for a clumsy and completely needless challenge on Ilkay Gundogan in the centre-circle. He’ll miss the next game if Spain go through and he might miss a sizeable chunk of this one too if he doesn’t get his disciplinary act together.
26 min: Germany corner. Before it can be taken, Robin Le Normand gets a ticking-off from the referee for persietently manhandling Antonio Rudiger. He continues to manhandle him anyway as the ball comes in, which seems a remarkably stupid thing to do but he gets away with it on this occasion. He needs to be careful, does Robin. Nothing much comes of the set-piece.
24 min: Kimmich is fouled out by the right touchline and gets a free-kick. Kroos squares the dead ball across the edge of the six-yard box, where Jonathan Tah is unable to get any power on his header. He steers the ball goalwards but it drops harmlessly at the feet of Spain goalkeeper Unai Simon.
22 min: Cucerella helps the ball on to Williams out on left touchline. He plays inside to Laporte, who sees space opening up in front of him. He tries a shot from about 25 yards out but doesn’t trouble Neuer.
21 min: Now Gundogan plays the ball wide to Kimmich, who sends a cross towards Havertz. There’s not much power on his header and Neuer saves easily.
20 min: Joshua Kimmich sends an early ball from deep to the edge of the Spain penalty area trying to pick out Ilkay Gundogan. It’s cut out by a defender.
19 min: Fabian Ruiz sends a shot whistling narrowly wide of the top corner after more good work by Yamal down the right flank.
15 min: Lamine Yamal takes the free-kick and sends a fairly low shot narrowly wide of the right post. One wonders, had he been born in Portugal and was playing in the same national team as Cristiano Ronaldo, if the 16-year-old would be allowed to take free-kicks in such good positions.
14 min: Antonio Rudiger gets caught out of position and ends up fouling Dani Olmo just to the left of the D in a very dangerous area. He gets booked and will miss the semi-final should Germany reach it.
12 min: With other options open to him, Nico Williams tries a low shot from distance. It’s not a very good one and the ball goes well wide of the left upright. The Spain winger immediately waves apologetically at various teammates.
10 min: With Germany on the attack, Kai Havertz plays the ball left and wide to David Raum, whose first-time cross into the Spain penalty area is poor. He sends the ball straight into the arms of a grateful Unai Simon.
9 min: Laporte sends a wonderful low pass fizzing up the touchline to the feet of Nico Williams, who is immediately dispossessed by Emre Can.
7 min: A distraught Pedri is forced off the pitch with an injury; one he sustained in that challenge with Kroos. Dani Olmo comes on his place.
6 min: Of course if Germany lose tonight, this will be Toni’s final game as a professional footballer. He’s said he’ll be hanging up his boots as soon as his country’s interest in Euro 2024 ends. There’s a break in play as Pedri continues to receive treatment.
4 min: Toni Kroos mistimes a tackle on Pedri and sends the Spain midfielder cartwheeling through the air. Referee Anthony Taylor is immediately surrounded by complaining players from both sides and shoos them all away. Kroos got a touch on the ball and it’s almost certainly that which spares him a booking.
3 min: Spain are dominating possession in these very early stages but give away possession cheaply by needlessly conceding a throw-in near ther halfway line.
1 min: With his back to goal, Alvaro Morata controls a ball inside from the left and lays it off to Pedri, who shoots with his left foot from just outside the penalty area. His feeble effort is straight at Manuel Neuer.
1 min: Germany get the ball rolling in this heavyweight eliminator, their players wearing white shirts, shorts and socks. The footballers of Spain wear red shirts, blue shorts and red socks.
Not long now: Anthony Taylor and his team of match officials lead both sets of players out on to the pitch for what could be a truly seismic football match. Kick-off is just a couple of anthems, some handshakes, a coin-toss and a shrill blast of the English referee’s away.
Big Interview: As a Spanish international with a German wife who has never played club football in his home country and plies his trade with RB Leipzig, Dani Olmo is as well placed as anybody to talk about today’s big game. Sid Lowe sat down with the midfielder for a chat in Donaueschingen …
Those teams: A late call-up for Aleksander Pavlovic, who had to drop out of Germany’s squad with tonsilitis on the eve of the tournament, Emre Can makes his first start of the tournament for Germany, with pink-haired Barbie boy Robert Andrich making way.
Jonathan Tah returns to the Germany side after serving a suspension and Nico Schlotterbeck drops to the bench. Spain manager Luis de la Fuente sends out the same 11 men who started against Georgia.
Spain: Simon, Carvajal, Le Normand, Laporte, Cucurella, Gonzalez, Rodri, Fabian, Yamal, Morata, Williams.
Subs: Raya, Nacho, Vivian, Merino, Joselu, Olmo, Torres, Grimaldo, Remiro, Baena, Zubimendi, Oyarzabal, Jesus Navas, Lopez, Perez.
Germany: Neuer, Kimmich, Rudiger, Tah, Raum, Can, Kroos, Sane, Gundogan, Musiala, Havertz.
Subs: Gross, Fullkrug, Fuhrich, Baumann, Muller, Beier, Schlotterbeck, Anton, Wirtz, Mittelstadt, Henrichs, ter Stegen, Andrich, Koch, Undav.
Referee: Anthony Taylor
Referee’s assistants: Gary Beswick and Adam Nunn
Fourth official: Ivan Kruzliak
Video assistant referee: Stuart Attwell
Spain: Ilkay Gündogan believes Germany can look forward to their quarter-final against Spain “with a smile” having already changed the mood in the country and fulfilled their objectives at Euro 2024, writes Sid Lowe.
With his squad untroubled by suspensions or injuries, Spain boss Luis de la Fuente is expected to field an unchanged side to the one that came from behind to beat Georgia last time out, although it would be no great shock to see Dani Olmo Mikel Merino come into midfield in place of Pedri.
Germany manager Julian Nagelsmann has something of a dilemma now that Jonathan Tah is back from suspension. He’ll have to decide whether or to reinstate his first choice central defender at the expense of Nico Schlotterbeck, who was excellent in the Bayer Leverkusen man’s absence. Florian Wirtz was also benched for the win over Denmark and could return this evening at the expense of Leroy Sane.
Stuttgart is the venue for this mouthwatering clash between the hosts, Germany and many people’s tournament favourites Spain. Only one of these European heavyweights can advance and keep alive their hopes of winning the European Championships for an unprecedented fourth time.
Kick-off in the south-west of Germany is at 5pm (BST) but we’ll have team news and buildup in the meantime.
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