Right then, that’s enough from me. Thanks to all who messaged in – come back here tomorrow for more buildup as the tournament enters its final week.

If you don’t want to hang out with me – madness, I know – there’s live action to get stuck into elsewhere.

Spain’s Marc Cucurella has had an excellent tournament, and he’s been speaking before his side’s semi-final against France. “Within football, there has long been respect for Spain, how we play and the players we have, but maybe coming in as outsiders helped us,” he’s quoted as saying by ESPN.

Is it probably fair to have Spain as the favourites now? I, despite what the last few weeks have been telling us, still have France as more likely to get to the final, just because of their recent tournament record compared to the Spanish.

This warms the heart.

Some transfer news: Leicester have signed the 18-year-old midfielder Michael Golding from Chelsea on a four-year deal. Golding, an age-group international for England, made his only first-team appearance for the Blues in the FA Cup against Preston North End last season.

All is forgiven, says Pedri, after the Spain midfielder’s tournament was ended by a challenge from Toni Kroos in the quarter-final victory over Germany.

Thank you Toni Kroos for your message. This is soccer and these things happen. Your career and your record remain forever.

This will please all of you England fans out there. The Netherlands semi-final will be the first contest at a major tournament between the two sides since this …

Hello again! Here’s Bukayo Saka speaking after yesterday’s game, with Gareth Southgate full of praise for the winger.

0:48

Taha is back from lunch and is ready to take over the blog. Thanks all

Changing competitions for a moment, overnight Uruguay knocked out Brazil on penalties in the quarter-finals of the Copa América.

Spain midfielder Pedri has forgiven Toni Kroos for ending his European Championship, reports the Associated Press. Pedri was ruled out of the rest of Euro 2024 on Saturday with a left knee injury that he sustained in a hefty challenge from Kroos in the opening stages of Spain’s quarter-final victory over Germany. Kroos publicly apologised to the youngster at the end of an Instagram post and Pedri thanked the 34-year-old, who was playing what turned out to be his final match. Pedri said: “This is soccer and these things happen. Your career and your record remain forever.”

“I’m so proud of this guy!” Jadon Sancho reacts to Bukayo Saka’s penalty in the shootout against Switzerland.

Afternoon all. All this talk of Ivan Toney’s no-look penalty has reminded me of the former Valencia and Spain midfielder Gaizka Mendieta.

I’m going to hop off for a bit, with Stephen Flynn taking over while I get a bite.

Here’s Jonathan Wilson on Gareth Southgate, and what the England manager is getting right.

While he may be fortunate to have a gifted generation to coach, he is at least partly responsible for that generation thanks to his work with the England DNA programme and at under-21 level. He is perhaps rather better at the management side of football management than the football.

Ivan Toney’s been talking about his penalty technique but here’s the original no-look king.

Scott Baker-Marflitt has run through the numbers and laid them out for us all to see.

So, pigs are flying happily, monotheistic hell has frozen over, and everyone is fine with it, apparently.

I have nothing but respect for the lads and their Herculean efforts last night. I’ve managed to stop short of throwing Southgate under the bus, a feat for which I expect no baubles nor accoutrements of the sparkly bent.

Physics-busting as this tournament is, I’m finished attempting to make predictions based on 44 years of football fandom. But, I think my brain is signalling something like: “if we can string together the first 20 minutes of the first group game, approx 9 minutes from the last 16, and the final 50 minutes of the quarter final, we can probably handle the Dutch”.

Overall, a I need a lie down.

Cheers, enjoy (endure?) the rest of the ride.

One prediction I’m leaning into is thus:

Southgate will be knighted in the New Year Honours list. Nailed on!

A great point from Dan in Kennington.

Re 11.09, I think some people will hold it against Southgate even if he does win a trophy. Having long ago professed him to be clueless it will be ‘yeah but he always got lucky draws’, ‘the players won it, not him’, ‘there will always be an asterisk against it because England were terrible in 2024’. That’s just how football fandom is.

Another one to add to that list: ‘It’s just the Euros – he didn’t deliver when it really mattered at the World Cup.’

Al Gentle writes in:

I had the shared pleasure and passion watching the Turks v Netherlands last night in a bar near Bodrum.

The Turks were terrific: aggressive, ambitious and energetic, and not just those in the bar. Everything we’ve been crying out for England to be, only for us to be frustrated by caution, concern and, oh Lord not again, the dreaded backpass.

But here we are. The Turks blew themselves out, relentless until they ran out of whirlwinds. And England are through. Southgate is right, these are not normal games of football and perhaps his genius lies there. In tournament football hohum beats gungho.

A fair point: pragmatism wins out in international football. That being said, Spain seem to be the side at the moment capable of delivering on both fronts, to the point that if they don’t win the tournament they can point to the entertainment they’ve brought. With England it feels as if everything they’ve done can only be justified by winning the whole thing.

Here’s what Jude Bellingham had to say about the shootout. Prepare to feel very, very old. From PA:

It’s a first for me to be involved in one, to take one. I have awful memories kind of growing up and I think the first Euro that I was really interested in was the one against Italy [Euro 2012] with the dink from Pirlo. It kind of stains your memory a little bit, you always think ‘England in penalty shootouts, I’m not sure’, but it’s really nice to have that experience to add to the locker now.

The news you’ve all been waiting for … we’ve got the BBC’s viewing figures from yesterday’s England win. Their quarter-final against Switzerland reached a peak audience of 16.8 million people on BBC One, with 8.9 million streams on iPlayer.

Some Sunday morning listening for you all.

7 Jul 202411.18 BST

Paul MacInnes

UK police have reported another peaceful night amongst the travelling England fans after victory in Dusseldorf.

Six arrests were made on Saturday evening, five for trying to enter the stadium without a ticket and one for letting off a flare in the city centre, where 1000 fans without tickets gathered to watch the game.

Des Brown writes in.

I feel sad that either Wednesday or next Sunday will be Gareth Southgate’s final game. In the last 8 years under Southgate England have reached a final, two semi finals and a quarter final. In the 8 years prior to Southgate, this was the England record under 4 different managers:

2008 Euros: Did not qualify
2010 World Cup: last 16s
2012 Euros: quarter final.
2014 World Cup: eliminated in the group stages.
2016 Euros: last 16s.

Southgate made me watch England again.

I should add Southgate’s England future beyond this tournament remains unconfirmed. Yes, it’s a brilliant record he’s put together … BUT you just know that some will forever hold it against him if he doesn’t win a final.

Away from the Euros for just a sec: Uruguay are through to the semi-finals of the Copa América after beating Brazil on penalties.

And how have France and Spain fared against each other in the last few years? They last met in the 2021 Nations League final, won by France, though Spain were the victors at their last major tournament meeting, winning 2-0 at Euro 2012 thanks to two Xabi Alonso goals.

Just been looking over England’s recent record against the Netherlands … they’ve beaten the Dutch just once in their previous nine attempts. Their last meeting was in the Nations League semi-finals five years ago, when the Netherlands won 3-1 in extra-time. England’s starting line-up that day?

Pickford, Walker, Stones, Maguire, Chilwell, Rice, Delph, Barkley, Sancho, Rashford, Sterling (c).

Here’s what the man of the moment, Bukayo Saka, had to say last night about stepping up for his penalty, three years on from that miss against Italy at Wembley.

You can fail once but you have a choice whether you put yourself in that position again or not and I’m a guy that is going to put myself in that position. It’s something I embrace. I believed in myself and when I saw the ball hit the net, I was a very happy man.

I wasn’t focusing on the past – that’s done. I can only focus on now. Of course I know there’s lot of nervous people watching, my family included in the crowd, but I kept my cool and scored. We have some of best taker penalty takers in the world and we had talked about that if it did come to penalties, we would be confident. I’m happy we showed that today and scored five out of five.

Listen, we know we have two more games until we can change our lives and make some history. We’ll enjoy tonight but we’re really focused on that.”

Fascinating piece from Jonathan Wilson on the complications of this tournament, a coming together that doesn’t necessarily mean the end of division.

This is very sweet.

Can we talk about this, the move away from scribbled notes on a scrap of paper to a typed-up, immaculately taped list of directions that’ll most likely end up as merch poster to flog? Too formal for my liking.

Here’s what Jonathan Liew’s been up to in Germany away from the football.

Some discussion among colleagues as to how the England team will have voted in the general election. The broad consensus: Jordan Pickford probably didn’t vote, Kyle Walker and Harry Kane went Tory, Kieran Trippier and Bukayo Saka went Labour, Kobbie Mainoo went for an independent who promised to keep the local mobile library open, and Declan Rice voted tactically for the Lib Dems.

Respect to Ronald Koeman for actually giving an answer here instead of the usual diplomacy of: “We’re just focused on the semi-final, ready for any side, blahblahblah."

If we play the final, my preference is Spain because we had France in the group stage.”

Over to the Netherlands’ victory, with Jonathan Wilson writing about the big man up top.

For Ronald Koeman, as for Louis van Gaal before him, when there is an emergency for the Netherlands, call for Wout Weghorst. The Burnley striker might not be the Cruyffian idea of the Total Footballing front man, but this is not the first time he has turned a game for his country after coming off the bench. Weghorst didn’t score, but he gave the Netherlands a focal point to their attack around which Cody Gakpo, Memphis Depay and Xavi Simons could operate, and he gave them a way that Austria couldn’t find in the last 16 to break down this Turkish defence. He actually won only one header, touched the ball just 13 times, but presence is not easily measured by statistics.

Barney Ronay wrote about Bukayo Saka’s moment of catharsis. His smile after slotting in his penalty was lovely.

If you need to do some catching up, here’s Jonathan Liew on England’s rather nonsensical journey to this point.

We have our final four. England were on their way home – just like it was against Slovakia – until Bukayo Saka decided enough was enough. Cue the most unEnglish display in a penalty shootout: they were ice-cold.

The real entertainment, though, was in that humdinger between the Netherlands and Turkey, with end-to-end attacks, terrific last-ditch blocks from the eventual victors, and a particularly electric display from Cody Gakpo. The Dutch are going to cause England some serious problems.

I’m here all day so drop me a line with your thoughts, queries, pleas to Gareth, semi-final plans, whatever you fancy. Cheers!