Previous meetings between Euro 24 and Copa America rivals

Euro 24 and the Copa America are reaching a climax, and the quarter finals bring three games with FC Barcelona players on opposite sides, two in Europe and one in America.

Germany v Spain

The first is this Friday's Euro semi between host nation Germany (İlkay Gündoğan and Marc-André Ter Stegen) and in-form Spain (Pedri, Ferran Torres, Lamine Yamal and Fermín López) in a 6pm CEST kick-off.

Lamine Yamal and Fermín are in their first year of senior level football, so there isn't too much personal history here, but both Pedri and Ferran Torres have lined up in previous internationals against Ter Stegen and most particularly Gündoğan. In September 2020, the teams drew 1-1 in the Nations League, curiously at a time when Gündo and Ferran Torres were both playing together at a different club, Manchester City. Two months later, Ferran Torres played a starring role by scoring a hat-trick in a stunning 6-0 rout of the Germans in the same competition.

Neither Pedri nor Ter Stegen were in the squads for those games, but they were both there when Spain and Germany drew 1-1 during the group stage of the Qatar World Cup in 2022. Ferran Torres and Gündoğan were there too, and they both started that game.

France v Portugal

The second head-to-head is between Jules Kounde's France and a Portugal team featuring João Félix and João Cancelo on Friday at 9pm CEST. Kounde has only ever played Portugal once before, at Euro 20 (which was played in 2021 because of the coronavirus). However, João Félix was left on the bench that day and Cancelo missed the tournament after testing positive for Covid.

Brazil v Uruguay

Over in the United States, the highest profile of the quarter finals has to be the one between Raphinha's Brazil and Ronald Araujo's Uruguay, starting at 6pm Saturday local time (3am Sunday morning CEST). The curious thing is that although Araujo has played Brazil in the past, and Raphinha has done likewise against Uruguay, assuming both players are picked (and they most probably will be) this would be the first time they have both been involved in the same game.