Plenty of Liverpool fans remember where they watched the Euro 2008 final, even though their club was nowhere near Vienna. Their centre-forward was. Fernando Torres, at the end of his first Anfield season, scored the only goal as Spain beat Germany on 29 June. With the 2028 tournament coming to Britain and Ireland, that night is worth revisiting.
One touch settled the final in Vienna
The goal came after 33 minutes. Xavi slid a pass into the channel on the right, Torres got the better of Philipp Lahm and lifted the ball over the advancing Jens Lehmann. Earlier he had hit a post with a header, and Lehmann later saved from him in almost the same position. One goal was enough, and Spain won a major tournament for the first time since 1964.
Torres had not been the headline act in the weeks before. He had scored once in the whole tournament, against Sweden, while his strike partner David Villa had picked up the goals that grabbed attention. Sky Sports’ piece on the final still captures how much that single run changed the story of his summer.
The next final is at Wembley on 9 July 2028, twenty years and ten days after Vienna. Liverpool fans who would like to see one of their own players decide a tournament in front of them are already looking at euro 2028 tickets, even before the qualifying groups are drawn in December. The draw will show which of those players’ countries face the harder route.
His first season at Anfield set it up
Torres joined Liverpool from Atlético Madrid in July 2007, and English football took no time to notice him. He scored 24 league goals, more than any foreign player had managed in a debut Premier League season. Across all competitions he reached 33, which made him the first Liverpool player since Robbie Fowler in 1996-97 to pass 30 in a season.
The club itself looks back on that run as the form he took with him to Austria and Switzerland. Liverpool finished fourth that year, so the medals did not come at club level. For Torres they came a few weeks later, in a red shirt that happened to belong to Spain.
That is part of why the goal still matters on Merseyside. Supporters had spent a season watching him beat defenders in exactly that way. When he did it in a European final, it felt like something they had seen first.
Four Reds came home as European champions
Torres was not the only Liverpool player in Luis Aragonés’ squad. Three team-mates travelled with him, and their tournaments looked very different:
- Xabi Alonso came off the bench just after the hour in the final and helped Spain keep the ball while Germany pushed
- Pepe Reina was the back-up goalkeeper and stayed on the bench in Vienna
- Álvaro Arbeloa was also an unused substitute in the final, a year and a half after joining Liverpool from Deportivo
All four came back to Melwood as winners. For a club that had lost a Champions League final to AC Milan in Athens only a year earlier, it was a strange but welcome summer. Four players from the same dressing room had won the trophy their country had waited 44 years for.
The four did not stay together for long. Alonso left for Real Madrid in 2009, and Torres moved to Chelsea in January 2011. For one summer, though, Spain’s success had a clear Liverpool accent.
Who could do the same in 2028
Liverpool’s current squad includes several players who represent European nations. Florian Wirtz plays for Germany, while Cody Gakpo and Ryan Gravenberch are part of the Netherlands set-up. None of their countries has qualified yet, and qualifying only starts in March 2027.
That uncertainty is part of the appeal. In 2007, few people would have predicted that Liverpool’s new signing would score in a European final twelve months later. Torres arrived with a reputation, but the final was not on anyone’s list of expectations for him.
The 2028 tournament will be played on these islands, with the final at Wembley. If a Liverpool player has a summer like Torres had in 2008, it will happen in front of a crowd that knows him from Anfield. Supporters who were in pubs and living rooms in 2008 may this time have the chance to be in the stadium.
