NEWYou can now listen to PK Press Club articles!
There may not be a clear favorite on Sunday when Spain and Argentina meet in the FIFA World Cup final, but there are some very visible differences in how each team has gotten to this point.
For Argentina, Lionel Messi is the star. He is the top scorer in World Cup history with 21 goals. In 2022, he was the best player of the tournament with seven goals and three assists. Entering Sunday, he has eight goals and four assists in this World Cup. Unquestionably, Messi has a supporting cast with Argentina made up of global stars. But Messi is THE star.
On the other hand, it’s a completely different approach.
For Spain, there are world-class players in the squad, but it is the team that is the star. Even with a player like Lamine Yamal, a recent Ballon d’Or finalist at 18, no player is above the team or its system. Instead, each actor fulfills a role within this system and sticks to that role.
Former Paris Saint-Germain, AC Milan and Inter Milan star striker Zlatan Ibrahimović, now an analyst at FOX Sports, put it succinctly immediately after Spain’s 2-0 victory over France in the World Cup semifinals.
“If I talk about Spain, I don’t talk about a single star,” Ibrahimović said. “The team is the star. When they shine, they shine collectively, even if you have Yamal. It’s not a team that depends on one player. It’s not an individual performance. It’s a team performance. Everything they do is as a team.”
The founding of the Spanish system
The 2010 World Cup champions (Photo by Shaun Botterill – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
At the heart of this team is a system that has been evolving for many years. From 2004 to 2008, Spain was coached by Luis Aragonés. Then, from 2008 to 2016, La Roja was led by Vicente del Bosque. These years saw Spain achieve unprecedented success, winning the Euros in 2008 and 2012, as well as the World Cup in 2010. The teams were led by a wave of talent including David Villa, Fernando Torres, Cesc Fàbregas, Andrés Iniesta, Gerard Piqué and Carles Puyol.
Around this time, Spain (and Barcelona) developed and perfected the “tiki-taka” style of play which included constant short passing, players forming triangles to have multiple passing options, and a strong emphasis on possession with a high tempo. For this generation of gamers, it worked. But like all things, it eventually came to an end.
Replacing this generation has been difficult, as Spain failed to make it out of the group in the 2014 World Cup and then were bounced to the round of 16 in 2018 and 2022. But after the 2022 exit, Spain made huge strides in their development by hiring Luis de la Fuente to coach the first team.
It was a bold hire because, despite going through three World Cups without winning a knockout match, Spain decided to stay on the same path and rely on an insider.
De La Fuente’s new approach
Luis de la Fuente is a long-time coach in the Spanish system. (Photo by MAURO PIMENTEL / AFP via Getty Images)
De la Fuente was promoted to Spain after successfully coaching their youth teams since 2013. Before that, he had failed to coach at club level in Spain and Portugal.
But with Spain’s youth teams, de la Fuente had built something special with a new generation of Spanish players. He won the Euro U-19 championship, then moved up an age group and led the U-21 team to the Euro U-21 championship. His final stop before the full national team was the 2020 Olympics (held in 2021) with the U-23 team, which he led to the silver medal after losing to Brazil in the final.
Luis de la Fuente as Olympic coach in Tokyo. (Photo by Alex Livesey – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
When he joined the first team, he knew what worked. Although he was an insider, he had his own ideas. He didn’t want to get rid of Spain’s quick, quick passing style, but instead wanted to breathe new life into it with tactical adjustments.
He asked Spain to be more direct and place the ball more quickly in the attacking third. De la Fuente also wanted to create overloads centrally to open up space for wingers to have more space to operate in one-on-one situations. Then, in defense, he developed a commitment to the team’s shape to close down space and win the ball back.
But de la Fuente does not act alone either. Other Spanish national youth team managers were creating the same system during his time at youth level. Just as the players worked together, so did the coaches.
Santi Denia was also coach of the Spanish national youth team at this time after being hired in 2010. When de la Fuente became full team manager, Denia was hired to replace him with the Spanish U-21 team and the 2024 Olympic team.
Spanish summer 2024
Spain won Euro 2024 for the first time since 2012. (Photo by Jose Breton/Action Pics/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Working in unison, de la Fuente and Denia have created an incredible summer of 2024 for Spanish football.
First there was the full national team at Euro 2024, where de la Fuente’s side won all seven of their matches to claim the title. The road was extremely difficult. Spain won their three group stage matches against Italy, Croatia and Albania without conceding a goal. Then, in the round of 16, they beat Georgia, hosted Germany, France and then England in the final.
As for the Olympic team, Denia won the gold medal using essentially the same system. In the round of 16, Spain beat Japan and Morocco, then France in the gold medal match (in Paris).
Spain won the Olympic gold medal at the 2024 Summer Games. (Photo by John Todd/ISI/Getty Images)
Just as important as the Euro win and Olympic gold were for Spain, Denia was able to develop players who made smooth transitions to the full team after playing the same system.
Five players from the gold medal-winning Olympic team made the World Cup squad, including key players Pau Cubarsí and Álex Baena. It would have been six if star striker Fermín López hadn’t broken his foot just before the tournament.
“Luis is a master at managing a team,” Denia recently told FIFA. “He understands how players work, he knows how to guide them and he feels who should start each match. He adds his own touch to an established model, taking into account the profile of the players. This has brought results to the association in recent years and helped us win titles. We believe in this model, and Luis believes in it more than anyone.”
The race for the 2026 World Cup
De la Fuente was able to help create and implement a new consistent system and style of play within the Spanish youth team and several clubs in the country. This helped facilitate the nomination of a roster for the 2026 World Cup.
But it hasn’t been without controversy either. When the list was named, it did not include any Real Madrid players. La Liga rivals Barcelona, meanwhile, sent eight players to the World Cup squad.
In Spain it was very controversial and almost unthinkable that Real Madrid would be absent from La Roja on the biggest stage. For de la Fuente, he declared that the squad was “perfect” and that “these are the 26 players we wanted”.
Once again, it was de la Fuente’s belief in the system.
“The best players are not only at Real Madrid, Barcelona or Atlético. There are very good players at other clubs,” de la Fuente explained before the tournament. “As we have extensive knowledge of Spanish football, we choose those who we believe best fit our system.”
The last two months have proven de la Fuente right. In the first seven matches of the World Cup, Spain has not lost and conceded only one goal. Their only blemishes were a 0-0 draw against Cape Verde and a goal conceded in a 2-1 win over Belgium in the quarter-final.
Former French World Cup winner Thierry Henry, who is now an analyst for FOX Sports, is familiar with de la Fuente’s system. He coached the French U-23 team at the Olympics, which lost to Santi Denia and Spain in the gold medal match.
“The Spanish team finds a way to succeed at every level,” Henry said after Spain’s victory over France. “Women’s football, youth tournaments, the Olympics – I lost a final to them – they come back again and again. Identity and philosophy, they all play the same at all levels. The coach was normally the coach of the youth team, but because he knows the system and all the players know it, you can see it’s a team with stars. But above all, it’s a team effort. Today we weren’t in the game because mainly because when the Spanish team gets the ball, they don’t give it back to you.
“I also want to pay tribute to the whole system that they put in place,” Henry added. “Because Spain had never won like this, and now they are winning at every level.”
Spain and their impressive system will now be put to the test – against an Argentina team led by Messi, the reigning World Cup champions and two-time reigning Copa América champions. The ultimate system against the ultimate star.
