Late Spanish turnaround at Wembley tops a Saturday of European sport

LONDON — Saturday, 26 September produced a crowded sporting evening across Europe, and a Nations League thriller at Wembley supplied the standout result of the day. Spain recovered from a two-goal deficit to beat England 3-2 in front of a home crowd, pushing their unbeaten run to 39 matches, in a weekend that also delivered a Laver Cup swing, a European volleyball final in Milan and a world road cycling crown in Montreal. A France 24 Sports roundup by L'Equipe TV pulled all four strands together.

The Spain-England tie turned on the interval. La Roja trailed 2-1 at half-time in their Nations League opener and needed to change the shape of the match. The introduction of substitutes Álex Baena and Mikel Oyarzabal did exactly that: both scored in the second half, the second of them supplying the third goal of the night that completed the turnaround and settled the contest in Spain's favour. It was, by any measure, a hard-fought win rather than a comfortable one.

The manner of the victory is as instructive as the scoreline. Goals from players who began the match on the bench underline how much depth Spain now carries, a strength that allows the team to alter a game without a formation change alone doing the work. Returning to action after a break, the visitors absorbed an awkward first half and still finished with a result that, on the evidence of the evening, they controlled for long enough to matter.

Wembley, on a Saturday evening, is rarely a neutral setting, and Spain's run of 39 undefixtures carries a weight that goes beyond a single Nations League fixture. The streak is a talking point in itself — a benchmark measured in months of matches rather than isolated results, and one that demands a response from any side Spain meets. For England, the loss in front of their own supporters is the kind of fixture that prompts questions, particularly after going two goals ahead and failing to hold the advantage.

The night was captured by the Associated Press, whose photographer Ian Walton took the widely used image of Oyarzabal, left, celebrating as he scored Spain's third goal in London. That picture, published with the France 24 report, encapsulates the comeback: a substitute arriving late to erase a deficit and leave Spain with their longest unbeaten streak in years.

Away from football, the tennis news was of a different character. On day two of the Laver Cup, Carlos Alcaraz led Team Europe's comeback with a three-set singles win over Taylor Fritz, a result that swung the contest back toward the European team after earlier setbacks. With that victory, Europe moved to a 7-5 lead going into the final day of action on Sunday — a workable but not unassailable margin in a format decided across a single day of rubbers.

The Laver Cup's structure rewards exactly what Alcaraz provided. A team event pitting Europe against the rest of the world, it is settled by an accumulation of points rather than one result, so a single three-set win can be decisive both on the scoreboard and in the momentum of the weekend. Europe's late surge on Saturday means the trophy is very much alive going into Sunday, and Sunday's matches should carry considerable tension.

The volleyball final produced a result of a different sort again. Defending champions Poland beat France in the European Championship final on Saturday evening in Milan, and Les Bleus were beaten in four sets. A four-set defeat suggests a contest that stayed within reach for much of the evening before the Poles found the decisive margin — the pattern that separates a champion's performance from a near miss.

Hosting a continental final in Milan placed the match on accessible territory for French supporters, and the result will be felt well beyond the players involved. A home-adjacent crowd of that size tends to create pressure as much as encouragement, and a defeat in a final is a difficult one to file away. Poland, meanwhile, successfully defended the title they arrived with.

The cycling result, however, was emphatically positive. Demi Vollering claimed her first World Championships title in Montreal on Saturday, rounding off what has been a near-perfect road campaign. The 29-year-old also won the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia this season, alongside a string of other major races — a combination that is difficult to assemble at any point in a career, let alone a single season.

What makes the Montreal win notable is the weight it carries. World road championship medals are among the most sought-after in the sport, and taking one after sweeping the two biggest Grand Tours of the season confirms that Vollering's results were not a matter of peaking for one particular fortnight. The rainbow jersey closes a campaign in which consistency, endurance and finishing power all had to hold across weeks of racing.

Taken together, Saturday's results tell a familiar European story with an unusual twist. The continental strength showed up in tennis and cycling, where the leading individuals and teams converted their advantages decisively. In football and volleyball, however, the margins were far tighter — Spain needed substitutes to overturn a two-goal gap, and France were pushed to four sets before Poland prevailed. Comfort and vulnerability, sometimes in the same evening.

The France 24 Sports roundup, published on 27 September at 12:41 and updated minutes later, runs just over six minutes and also carries further Sports segments, including coverage of the Nations League and continental competitions. The programme's editors assembled a digest rather than a single story, an approach that suits a Saturday when several sports deliver results within hours of each other.

The immediate focus is Sunday's Laver Cup finale, with Europe holding a 7-5 lead and a final day of matches to come. Beyond that, the Nations League group stage continues, the aftermath of the Milan final will be dissected in France, and Vollering's world title will be absorbed by a peloton still processing a season of rare dominance. One Saturday, four sports, and a set of conclusions that are already being revised by the next round of results.