“I’ve suffered a lot…” – Cole Palmer replies Cucurella after begging him not to start in EURO finals against Spain
Spain and England will compete in the Euro 2024 tournament final.
Spain has played some outstanding football en route to the championship, making this tournament so far quite exciting.
One of the top players in the competition, Marc Cucurella, has said that, in the lead-up to the championship, he feels cautious about Cole Palmer, his clubmate.
“He has not played a lot at Euro 2024, but it has to be Cole Palmer,” Marc Cucurella told The Athletic when asked about the England player he fears to face the most in the Euro 2024 final on Sunday night.
“His football brain works so quickly, he is always a step ahead of the rest. His decision-making is almost always excellent, and that sort of intelligence is the most difficult thing to defend against, you just can’t predict what he’ll do next. I’ve suffered a lot in training.
“He reminds me a lot of Lamine Yamal. Same style of player. He is a guy who does not care too much about anything. They don’t take life or themselves too seriously. If you ran into Palmer in the streets, you would never tell he is a footballer. But then he plays and… oof.
“He arrived at a tough time for Chelsea, when the team was struggling, and he made an impact from the start. That helped him a lot to keep growing and getting more confident. If you manage to get those kinds of players in a situation of confidence, they make the difference. I’m so happy and hope he carries on like this… but after this weekend!
“He is a special character. He is so serious. When people see him, it’s not like he is instantly likeable. It’s difficult to explain, but when any team-mate sees me they instantly know I am up for a joke and that we can engage in that way. But he is always so serious.
“Still, we got along well, really quickly, since the first training sessions. We were doing mini-matches in training, five-a-side, and the coaches put us together in some. From there, we clicked. Whenever we were on the same team, we would never lose. We had this joke of being the winning team and that’s how our good bond started.”
Cole Palmer, in the meantime, responds to him by saying, “We need the trophy. If the coach starts me, I’ll have to play with my strength for my country.”