UEFA Euro 2024: Spain bask in bench strength | Football News

A bold and beautiful Spain sailed over every hurdle that came in their way over the last one month. While they were taking teams apart acr...

A bold and beautiful Spain sailed over every hurdle that came in their way over the last one month. While they were taking teams apart across different cities of Germany, they were also breaking a few age-old perceptions that have become part and parcel of Spanish football.
Since the turn of the century, and more specifically following the Leo Messi-Cristiano Ronaldo era, the modern-day consumer of world football had come to believe that there’s nothing more to Spanish football than El Clasico.
The last time there was a club-country double in European competitions was way back in 1988 when PSV Eindhoven and The Netherlands won the two titles. Real Madrid and Spain have done an encore 36 years later, but it can be safely said that these two titles are completely independent of each other.
Yes, Real’s Dani Carvajal had the captain’s armband on when Spain finally won it, and Barcelona‘s Lamine Yamal was the talisman who kept delivering the goods time and time again, but this victory wasn’t just about the two elite-team players. There was a bit of Barca influence with Dani Olmo and Marc Cucurella both being products of the Catalan giants’ youth set-up La Masia, but they have played all their football in other clubs of Spain and abroad.

Let’s look at the two scorers of Sunday – Nico Williams and Mikel Oyarzabal. Not many are aware that they play in opposing clubs of one of the most fiercely contested derbies in Europe – the Basque derby. While Nico is still a part of Athletic Bilbao (he may not be one at the end of the summer transfer window), Oyarzabal plays for Real Sociedad, one of the most consistent Spanish clubs which played in the Champions League this year. Add to them goalkeeper Unai Simon and defender Le Normand – both from the Basque region – and we have a team which is significantly different from the 2012 Euro winning side, which had six Barcelona and four Real players in the starting XI. Meanwhile, the man of the tournament Rodri, who now plays for Manchester City, is a Villarreal product, a team that most Manchester United fans would remember from that Europa final marathon tie-break loss in 2021.
It’s not just about the personnel. The current lot’s style and approach is significantly different from that of both Real and Barca. This Spanish team does revel in possession, but it is not meaningless possession of Luis Enrique’s 2022 World Cup team, that seemed a pale shadow of the tiki-taka masters of the earlier decade.
The Spanish coach Luis de la Fuente – himself a Basque who played most of his football for Bilbao – understood very early that he doesn’t have the quality of Xavi Hernandez, Iniesta and Sergio Busquets in his line-up to play the old tiki-taka style. Rather, the players have the zest and speed of a technically gifted lot which is ready to press high when required and launch lightning fast counters when that’s the call of the hour. There has also been a shift in style with the fast wingers on two ends of the pitch calling the shots instead of million passes in the middle of the park with the hope of one breakthrough ball.

This pragmatism and fluidity of approach with a group of players who don’t have the ego of superstars, but the work ethic of world beaters, helped de la Fuente create a team for all seasons.
Come next World Cup, four magnificent Barcelona youngsters – Pedri, Gavi, Fermin Lopez and Pau Cubarsi – should be in the mix and the red of La Roja could be the brightest colour in world football for a while.

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