DANI OLMO STARTED EURO 2024 AS SPAIN'S 12TH MAN BUT HE'S DONE A CESC FABREGAS AND ENGLAND MUST BEWARE

Dani Olmo started three of Spain's first four games at Euro 2024 on the bench
But since Pedri's injury against Germany, Olmo, 26, has become undroppable
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Lamine Yamal may have been bathed by Lionel Messi when he was a baby but he isn't the only current Spanish international who met Messi during his childhood.

Dani Olmo, the joint top scorer at Euro 2024, tells the story of how as an eight-year-old he went to watch his father manage a game in Castelldefels in Barcelona and Messi was there to watch his friends.

Olmo was playing on the side when he was pulled by a family friend to take a picture with Messi but was reluctant do so - the resulting picture shows a straight-faced Olmo with a ball in his lap and desperate to get back to action.

The world has seen the results of his inseparable nature with the ball in recent weeks, with a goal and an assist against Germany and then the winning goal against France.

In Spain, they are comparing Olmo's tournament to that of Cesc Fabregas in 2008 as the '12th man' who now finds himself as the No 10 in a European Championship final.

When David Villa was injured in the semi-final in 2008, Fabregas - who scored the winning penalty in the quarter-final - came on and got two assists against Russia, before starting in the final against Germany when Spain won in Vienna.

Olmo, who plays for RB Leipzig, was not meant to play a starring role in Germany. He came off the bench in the first game against Croatia and didn't play in the second against Italy.

Against Germany in the quarter-final, he replaced an injured Pedri in the eighth minute, then delivered a match-winning performance.

Having started just two of La Roja's six matches at the Euros, the 26-year-old will head to Berlin with the best goals and assists per minute ratio at the tournament, averaging a contribution every 68 minutes. Of Spain's 13 goals in Germany, Olmo has been directly involved in five.

At Spain's base camp in the Black Forest in the town where the River Danube starts, they talk about a serious yet warm individual who provides a different current in the Spanish flow.

'With the way Lamine and Nico [Williams] spread the pitch, it creates the space for Dani to drive up. He is one of the most vertical players we have,' says one Spanish official.

That directness has led to goals in each of their three knockout games in a team which Olmo describes as 'different' and one that takes 'risks a little bit more' compared to Spanish sides of the past.

Under Luis de la Fuente, Olmo has flourished as an advanced No 10. It is a relationship that goes back to the Spanish youth sides - one that Olmo called 'special' because of his continued faith in him, even after he made the move from Spain to Croatia.

For Olmo, the similarities with Fabregas aren't just limited to the Euros. Fabregas made his debut for Spain in 2006, aged 18, despite having never played a first-team game in Spain.

Olmo was the same when he made his debut, aged 21, becoming only the second to play for Spain without playing domestically, while plying his trade at Dinamo Zagreb.

Both Fabregas and Olmo left La Masia at 16 in search of opportunities. In Fabregas's case Arsenal called, while for Olmo his father decided that Zagreb offered a better sporting project.

Olmo later called it 'the hardest decision' of his life, leaving his home for Croatia.

He too could have ended up in London as a 21-year-old had Arsenal coughed up the £33million that Zagreb were after in 2019. A move to Leipzig followed and both Barcelona and Real Madrid have tried but failed to bring him back to Spain in recent years.

With a £50.5million release clause that expires next week, he looks set to leave with Bayern Munich, Man City, Man United and Arsenal all in the running for one of the stars of Euro 2024. Sources close to Olmo say he would love to return to Spain but that looks unlikely given his salary.

Away from football in the Spanish camp, while the likes of Yamal, Williams and Pedri spend their spare time playing EA24, Olmo is an avid chess player with Unai Simon, the Spain keeper. He also speaks fluent Croatian, English and German and has a German girlfriend.

'I'm the player I am because of my time in Spain, Croatia, Germany. You learn from every experience, he told The Guardian last week.

Olmo's story is one of a handful in the Spanish side that have taken an unconventional path to the national team but that collection of experiences and journeys has made them such a force going into Sunday.

They will head to Berlin as favourites, looking to repeat the feats of their predecessors in 2008 and 2012, and '90 minutes from glory', as Olmo said on Friday, but fully aware that it is time to create their own history.

2024-07-12T23:07:39Z dg43tfdfdgfd