Spain has gone eleven years without picking up a trophy, an eternity for a football that is presumed to be dominant in Europe and the world.
Since that title in the 2012 Euro Cup, a brilliant end to the golden years (2008 Euro Cup, 2010 World Cup), the Spanish team has combined embarrassing moments (2014 World Cup, lost in the first phase, although it did not It remains to go that far: just remember 2022, surpassed by Morocco in the round of 16) with a few honorable appearances, and among them the final of the last Nations League, that of 2021, when they fell to France (2-1). .
The drift has questioned the structure of the project, perhaps they are the easements of the good times: at the end of a great moment, depression looms.
The Spain of today has little to do with that, that of the golden years.
Barça and Madrid do not lead the eleven, neither does Atleti rule, and Luis de la Fuente sits on the bench, a coach trained at the Basque school and whose name has always been on the trigger: no matter how much he has won two of his three games officials, including the semifinal this past Thursday against Italy (2-1), nobody lets De la Fuente breathe, weighed down by his defeat against Scotland in the qualifying phase of the Eurocup (2-0).
Under these circumstances, this Nations League final seems like a lifeboat for a system in perennial conversion (which is unresolved). The names of Jordi Alba and Jesús Navas still appear around, Mohicans from that great era whose echoes continue to resound in the popular imagination.
Perhaps the Nations League is not worth a World Cup or a European Championship, but it is well worth a title.
The magnitude of the challenge gains strength if the weight of the rival is taken into account. Nobody will question the category of Croatia, silver in the penultimate World Cup, bronze in the last, a team that, in the last decade, has always been there, always led by Modric and Perisic (and until recently, by Rakitic).
According to some, Croatia bases its resources on its appetite, the insatiable voracity embodied by Modric (37), a guy who had already won the Ballon d’Or in 2018, already a veteran man at that time, and who continues to accelerate:
–Modric runs as if he were trying to win his first trophy, when he will have won about 50 – Joselu said yesterday, one of the novelties of the year in the Spanish team.
(On March 25, in his debut with the red, Joselu had added two goals in nine minutes against Norway).
Zlatko Dalic, a Croatian coach, assumes Joselu’s reflection.
He says that his men have an appetite, but also the experience of recent adventures (“we have played seven overtimes or penalty shootouts; we have won six”), and now he hopes to close the circle, “a victory that will crown this generation”.
De la Fuente is wary of that appetite. But above all, he is wary of Croatian solvency in extreme situations:
–We would like to finish the game in 90 minutes. The less length, the better.
