The Spanish team will open this Saturday, taking on Norway at the La Rosaleda stadium in Malaga, the route that should take it to Euro 2024 with the logical mixture of illusion and uncertainty that the start of any new project entails. The debacle at the World Cup in Qatar stung a lot among a fan who had regained hope after seeing how La Roja was trading high again, first in the European Championship that the pandemic postponed to 2021 and then in the second edition of the League of Nations. Luis Enrique seemed to have revitalized a team that touched the sky between 2008 and 2012, but later went through a long vale of tears. However, the exotic World Cup held in the small but opulent emirate was a reality check for a still immature block that paid dearly for the intransigence of the Asturian coach.
With no alternative plan to his model based on a tireless but sterile possession against well-sheltered rivals like Morocco, Lucho died with his principles and gave way to Luis de la Fuente, an unknown to the general public for more than a decade working in the Federation , was the architect of the recent successes of the lower categories and helped the growth of a litter of internationals that jumps to the fore ready to conquer the world.
Consummated both the voluntary goodbye of Busquets and the forced retirement of Sergio Ramos, La Roja has run out of vestiges of those times of wine and roses in which it caused the envy of the world and seeks references for a new era. Nostalgia is useless because football lives in the present and De la Fuente needs immediate results to establish himself in office and for the parish to believe in his commandments.
The man from La Rioja has made a clean slate with a groundbreaking list that is committed to new profiles in search of a more chameleonic team, has moved up the ranks and will try to implement a novel script that involves simplifying concepts in the rear with old-school central defenders and establish a more vertical football that pays the ground for pure battering rams, although without losing sight of those versatile extremes who had command in the square with Lucho. The 4-2-3-1 is emerging as the system by which the selection of Luis de la Fuente will be governed, who will give stripes to Rodri, Zubimendi, Ceballos or Oyarzabal, classics from his time in the lower categories on which he will pivot largely the success or failure of your rise to absolute.
Odegaard leads the Red Vikings
The objective is to start by stomping against Norway, a team that has been excluded from the final stages of major tournaments since 2000 and ranks 43rd in the FIFA ranking, but which is emerging as the rival to beat within an affordable group that they complete Scotland, Cyprus and Georgia. The team led by Stale Solbakken since the end of 2020 unites the traditional physical power of Scandinavian teams, considerable doses of talent and the leadership of experienced footballers in the continent’s main leagues. Haaland’s loss, the terror of Europe, takes away his fang, but the job of his defenders, Odegaard’s vision and Sorloth’s punch are reason enough to keep our guard up.
Spain and Norway have previously met eight times, with La Roja winning five, drawing two and losing one. The only setback occurred in the group stage of Euro 2000, when Steffen Iversen took advantage of a bad start by José Francisco Molina to solve a bland match played in Rotterdam with a header that complicated the horizon of the team led by José Antonio Camacho and refereed by the Egyptian of ill-fated memory Gamal Al-Ghandour.
The two most recent duels between the two teams date back to 2019, with the qualifying phase for the multi-venue Euro Cup as a backdrop. Spain, under the regency of Luis Enrique, prevailed 2-1 in Valencia against a Norway led by Lars Lagerback, and drew 1-1 in Oslo seven months later, with Robert Moreno at the helm after the Asturian coach had to lie down aside because of his daughter’s illness.
Now the baton is picked up by Luis de la Fuente, who seeks to make his debut as senior coach with a victory. The precedents in this regard are encouraging. Thirty of the forty-four changes of helmsman that have been recorded since Spain began its journey on the international scene in 1920 were followed by a victory at the start of the new stage. Another reason to be optimistic at La Rosaleda.
-Probable alignments:
Spain: Kepa, Carvajal, Laporte, Iñigo Martínez, Gayà, Rodri, Zubimendi, Ceballos, Iago Aspas, Gavi and Morata.
Norway: Nyland, Ryerson, Ostigard, Strandberg, Meling, Aursnes, Thorsby, Odegaard, Elyounoussi, Solbakken and Sorloth.
Referee: Benoit Bastien (France).
Time: 8:45 p.m.
Stadium: La Rosaleda.
TV: At 1.