Ruled by the heart and head, Mikel Merino turns Spain’s unlikely hero in Euro 2024

Mireno, the son of a former footballer, Angel, came through the system of Osasuna, where his father was both a player and a coach.

Spain’s Mikel Merino celebrates scoring his team’s second goal against Germany. | Photo Credit: Getty Images

‘The kids’ Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams Jr. were off the pitch. The skipper and lead striker Alvaro Morata was taken out, too. Spain’s tactic had backfired and the 1-0 lead was let slip against Germany, leaving the Euro 2024 quarterfinal on a knife’s edge. 

A familiar story beckoned for La Roja. The previous three major tournament exits in 2018, 2021 and 2022 came in the shootout. But with a minute left in extra time, Mikel Merino, who had come on to mitigate Germany’s threat, rewrote the script with a dramatic match-winner.

Merino describes himself as an adventurer and is always ready for whatever football has thrown his way. Be it being subbed in with 28 minutes left, thrown on in the final minute of stoppage time, a rare full 90 minutes in a dead group rubber or being subbed in with 10 minutes left in the ongoing Euros.

One doesn’t need to read too much between the lines to understand Merino’s assignment with Spain in the opening four matches. 

When Spain had a comfortable 3-0 lead vs Croatia, Merino was brought on to rest the legs of the dazzler, Williams. Merino’s introduction in the 94th minute effectively helped see out the 1-0 win against Italy. Merino then got a run out against lowly Albania to allow the first XI stars to put their feet up. In the round of 16, he was brought on in the 80th minute, with a 3-1 lead against Georgia. 

A hundred and twenty-two minutes of nothing spectacular to write or talk about. His job description from his manager De La Fuente would have been the same. Keep it simple and help the team see the game out.

If you weren’t watching closely, you wouldn’t have even known he was part of Spain’s entourage in Germany or even the fact that he had 25 Spain senior caps to his name. But since 2023, Merino has quietly become the player with the second-most number of appearances under De La Fuente.

In a team studded with big names like Rodri, Pedri, Yamal, Williams, Morata, Fabian Ruiz, Dani Carvajal and many others, it’s easy for the eyes to miss a  Mikel Merino.

And he is not your typical Spanish attacking midfielder of the last two decades or the mould of the previous holder of the no. 6 shirt (Andres Iniesta) for la Roja. He is not diminutive, instead, the 28-year-old is a strapping 6’2” figure, who is good on the ball and makes runs in between the half-spaces, like a second striker, not something which you would see in Spanish football.

He doesn’t play for Real Madrid or Barcelona or Atletico Madrid. He plays for Real Sociedad, a club situated just 82 km from his place of birth, Pamplona.

Spain’s midfielder Mikel Merino (CR) heads the ball and scores his team’s second goal. | Photo Credit: AFP

Mireno, the son of a former footballer, Angel, came through the system of Osasuna, where his father was both a player and a coach. He took his first steps in professional football with Osasuna in the Segunda division. In 2015, he won the U-19 European Championships under his current Spanish senior team manager, De La Fuente. The following year, at just 19, he uprooted himself from Spain to Germany to play under Thomas Tuchel at Borussia Dortmund. He made eight appearances for Dortmund before moving to England for Rafael Benitez’s Newcastle United.

After a modest two-year spell with the Magpies, he returned home to Spain in a £10m deal for la Real. In his six seasons in San Sebastian, la Real has not finished out of the top 10 and has recorded league finishes of 9 ^th, 6 ^th, 5 ^th, 6 ^th, 4 ^th and 6 ^th. Merino earned his first Spain cap in 2020, with sporadic appearances coming between then and the end of 2022, where he failed to make the World Cup squad in Qatar.

With De La Fuente taking over the reins with the senior team in 2023, Merino has been a regular fixture in the XI both as a starter and as a substitute. He came into the Euros on the back of his best-scoring season with eight goals for la Real and his first goal for Spain in the thrashing of Cyprus, last year.

The move to la Real has been fundamental in his development as a player under Inamol Alguacil. “When I arrived at Real, I think it helped me to be an intense player,because I learnt what it meant to play in duels and win them. That’s whereImanol helped me to understand the importance of tactics in football. To count players, to see where the superiority is, to understand their own offensive and defensive systems and to find their weak points,” Merino said in an interview with  Sport.

Amidst the Euros, Merino has been attracting the attention of Barcelona and Arsenal. Merino is ready to go ‘ wherever my heart and my head asks me to go’. But before that, he needed to be someplace else, at Stuttgart’s MHPArena, in a European Championship quarterfinal.

Mikel was again sent on with the clock striking the 80-minute mark for Williams, to help close out the game. Spain’s precocious talents had endured a rough afternoon. In the very first minute, Toni Kroos rammed into Pedri, rendering the midfielder inactive and out of the game. Tackles and kicks followed on Yamal, Williams and Morata.

Spain’s Dani Olmo and Alvaro Morata celebrate Mikel Merino’s goal. | Photo Credit: REUTERS

Dani Olmo, who had come on for Pedri, had side-footed Spain into a 1-0 advantage in the second half before Spain braced itself for an onslaught. It was a bruising outing for many with as many as 26 fouls from both teams until the 80 ^th minute mark.

But Merino’s 10 minutes weren’t memorable. He misplaced a few passes, was dispossessed and watched on as Florian Wirtz sensationally equalised in the 89 ^th minute. Kroos’ pre-tournament warcry of ‘Let’s rock!” was unfolding at the Stuttgart Arena as Germany’s summer fairytale reshaped.

Merino, though, would now get another 30 minutes in the quarterfinal of a major tournament with De La Fuente having retired all his best-attacking talents to the bench. It was the time for Merino to go from a support act to a leading role. The teams continued to trade blows and with the penalty shootout looming, Merino popped up out of nowhere to become Spain’s unlikely hero.

In the 119 ^th minute, anticipating Olmo’s cross into the box, it must have been Merino’s heart, head and body asking him to make a late run in between the German center-backs Antonio Rudiger and Waldemar Anton as they took their eyes off him. With no defenders next to him, Merino sprung high and coiled himself before using every sinew of his body to turn the ball with his head and put it into a corner, where Manuel Neuer wouldn’t even have a chance to make the save. A 2-1 lead for Spain with his first shot of the game to dash the German hearts and a goal that sealed a semifinal berth.

As the Spanish fans rejoiced over his late goal, and his teammates dispersed away from him, Merino walked over to the corner flag and crouched down to do a lap around it, before letting out a roar. It was a nod to his old man, Angel, who coincidentally, scored in the same venue, 33 years ago, for Osasuna against Stuttgart in the UEFA Cup.

If this is where football takes him, and if this is what his heart and head envision for him, Merino would hope his adventures never end.