2023-06-13 20:02:42
Barely half a year has passed since Luis de la Fuente took over as coach. He has had a couple of weeks of training and two games on the bench, but the man from La Rioja faces his first litmus test with the final four of the League of Nations. It is not a great tournament nor does it generate the illusion and drama typical of the World Cups or the European Championships, although for the Haro coach it has become the hope of a shuttle to his stage in La Roja or the fear that he will end up being a stumbling block that increases doubts about his figure.
The third edition of the tournament reaches its decisive round with a good poster. The host Netherlands, the veteran and hyper-competitive Croatia and an Italy that contains many unknowns accompany Spain on the adventure, in which La Roja aspires to remove the bitter taste left by the defeat in the 2021 final against Mbappé’s France and Benzema.
There is no better balm for a romp at the first exchange in Scotland than a trophy, minor, but a trophy nonetheless. The call for players with stripes like Jordi Alba or Jesús Navas already indicated that De la Fuente is going with everything. His subsequent statements in which he highlighted the opportunity to win a title confirmed it. «This list is made to win. We believe that this moment has nothing to do with a qualifying phase, which is a longer process, “he assured.
Dutch and Croats kick off the four-way final this Wednesday in Rotterdam. The ‘Oranje’, runner-up in the first edition of the League of Nations in 2019, showed a solid but dull version at the World Cup in Qatar, in true Louis van Gaal style. After the more than tense KO in the quarterfinals against Argentina by Leo Messi, who ultimately owned the world, Ronald Koeman took over, in his second spell as coach. He arrives at this tournament in which he will act as a hostess mired in doubt, always irregular, after the very tough defeat against France in the qualifying duel for the European Championship in March that the subsequent victory against the weak Gibraltar did not fix.
The ‘Oranje’ has their own weighty names: Van Dijk, not long ago one of the best central defenders in the world; De Ligt, absent in the tournament due to injury; Dumfries, a dagger down the right flank and a pillar of Inter runner-up in Europe; or Frenkie de Jong, who has signed a great course at Barça. They lead a team in which the new generation does not finish exploiting.
In front they will have a real bone, an inexhaustible Croatian team in which the old guard, competitive to the extreme and with a thousand battles in their legs, refuses to leave the places of honor in the different competitions. The checkered was third in the World Cup with a very recognizable player base. Under the orders of Zlatko Dalic, Modric, watchword, Kovacic, Brozovic, Perisic, Kramaric or Vida continue. This group of Praetorians is accompanied by new talents, with Livakovic under the sticks, Lovro Majer or Gvardiol, a sensitive loss for the tournament due to his abdominal injury.
An indefinite Italy
The duel between the Netherlands and Croatia will be followed by the second semifinal, which faces Spain and Italy this Thursday from 8:45 p.m. in Enschede. It will be a real touchstone for this Luis de la Fuente team that is just beginning to walk.
Italy is not the fearsome team of other times, no matter how much it won the multi-venue Euro Cup in 2021. The dramatic absence in the World Cup, the second consecutive in a planetary event, confirmed the lack of definition that this ‘Azzurra’ by Roberto Mancini is going through. Names that aimed very high as the goalkeeper Donnarumma, the midfielder Jorginho or the attacker Federico Chiesa have remained halfway for the moment.
The hard core of the transalpine team, which Spain already eliminated in the semifinal two years ago in Milan, goes through Inter, who lost the Champions League final last Saturday. The form of Darmian, Acerbi, Bastoni, Dimarco and Barella, all of whom started against Manchester City, is unknown after the effort with their club. The performance of the Italian team depends to a large extent on this factor in a duel that could be a starting point or a stumbling block for the De la Fuente era.
Spain will play a friendly against racism at the Bernabéu against Brazil
Spain will face Brazil in March at the Santiago Bernabéu, as part of a campaign against racism under the slogan ‘one skin’. The friendly duel, guaranteed in the event that La Roja achieves direct qualification for the Eurocup, as would be foreseeable, was presented yesterday by Luis Rubiales, president of the Spanish Football Federation (FEF), and Ednaldo Rodrigues, his counterpart in the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF).
This match, which will measure the Spanish team against the five-time world champion for the first time since the 2013 game in the Confederations Cup final, was created as a result of racist insults to Vinicius at Mestalla. The unpleasant incidents in Valencia crossed the barrier of sports to become a diplomatic matter after the words of the President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in which he highlighted the seriousness of what happened and harshly criticized the passivity in this regard .
The diplomatic commotion accelerated the institutional reaction, also in the Federation, which in the framework of its actions managed the friendly dispute between the two countries against racism. «I immediately spoke with Ednaldo and the same day we got to work. We really wanted to play after 25 years in Brazil without coming to Spain. Soccer was invented to enjoy and not to generate violence with people who use it as a shield. We greatly admire a country like Brazil, one of the countries that has contributed the most players to our football,” concluded Rubiales.
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