If a National Team expresses the health of its football, Spain is a walking message that provokes pride because no one plays better. This week he confirmed it with attacking will, with more technical competence than physical dominance and deploying players who not so long ago were in the bottom drawer. Against Serbia, without any starter from either Real Madrid, Barça or Atlético, he walked from start to finish. So that I understand: without Unai Simón, Carvajal, Rodri, Pedri, Dani Olmo, Nico Willams or Lamine, he found resources to display very high-level football. With several of its players playing in other Leagues, but with a style that is already a Registered Trademark of Spanish football and of the often reviled League.
Many years ago the debate between winning or playing well was open. The discussions went to the bottom. One day, after a game, I heard this dialogue between journalists from opposing schools. “The only important thing is to win,” said the pragmatist. “Lie,” answered the romantic, “the only important thing is to breathe.” It is difficult to return from these philosophical extremes. That happened in Argentina, where the debate turned into war. But also in Spain that discussion sparked controversy.
The super-professionalized football of these days no longer has any doubts. For the industry that supports it, winning is the reason for being a competitive show. However, it doesn’t take much philosophizing to agree that beauty should remain an aspiration. We eat to feed ourselves, but we like to do so on porcelain plates and with a linen tablecloth. Football is a somewhat primitive field to which aesthetics have always been suspicious. However, all those players whom we have installed on the altars of memory were true artists who moved us by what they did and how they did it. Football is what it is thanks to those plastic geniuses. Effective artists who are not in any museum, but who elevate coffee conversations.
The truth is that when everything seemed lost, Spain won a World Cup playing an artistic football whose only name failed: “tiqui-taca”. Little name for so much football. As if it were just a matter of ruminating on the play. But no, when “tiqui-taca” reaches its splendor, football also reaches it. And reaching that football peak is difficult because it requires players of a higher level, a coach capable of challenging the trend and a symphonic collective harmony. That Spain of 2010 had it all and, based on her football appeal, she became a model.
But it is not easy to follow that path. International football shows us many identical players, coming out of the same mold, who we accept as a symptom of these times because they embody a prototype. As it is, mass-produced equipment is revolutionary and simpler than toast.
Since 2010, Spain has stood out for its gaming generation. It is true that there were periods in which he edged the opponent’s area without creating danger. However, an old-fashioned formula was insisted on, but one that exalts the Spanish players, who may not be strong or tall, but are very good. Technical and intelligent footballers who impose their dominance until they take over the games. Luis de la Fuente, from the discretion of someone who has gone through all the categories of football, pulls from the catalog to show us that there is a unique, attractive and winning culture.
This is precisely what we owe to the heroes of 2010: a football culture tailored to the Spanish player, who defines a style and is the envy of the entire world.
