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There may not be a clear favorite on Sunday when Spain and Argentina meet in the FIFA World Cup final, but there are very noticeable differences in the way each team reached this point.
For Argentina, Lionel Messi is the star. He is the all-time leading scorer in the World Cup with 21 goals. In 2022 he was the best player in the tournament with seven goals and three assists. Entering Sunday, he has eight goals and four assists in this World Cup. Without a doubt, Messi has a supporting cast with Argentina made up of world stars. But Messi is he star.
On the other hand, it’s a completely different approach.
For Spain, there are world-class players in the squad, but the team is the star. Even with a player like Lamine Yamal, who was recently a Ballon d’Or finalist when he was 18, no player is above the team or its system. Instead, each player plays a role within that system and sticks to that role.
Former Paris Saint-Germain, AC Milan and Inter Milan star forward Zlatan Ibrahimović, now a FOX Sports analyst, put it succinctly immediately after Spain’s 2-0 victory over France in the World Cup semi-final.
“If I talk about Spain, I’m not talking about a star,” Ibrahimović said. “The team is the star. When they shine, they shine collectively, even if you have Yamal. This is not a team that depends on one player. It is not an individual performance. It is a team performance. Everything they do is as a team.”
The basis 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 led by Luis Aragonés. Then, from 2008 to 2016, La Roja was directed by Vicente del Bosque. In those years, Spain achieved unprecedented success, winning the European Championship in 2008 and 2012, as well as the World Cup in 2010. The teams were led by a wave of talent that included David Villa, Fernando Torres, Cesc Fàbregas, Andrés Iniesta, Gerard Piqué and Carles Puyol.
At that time, Spain (and Barcelona) developed and perfected the “tiki-taka” style of play, which featured constant short passing, players forming triangles to have multiple passing options, and a strong emphasis on high-tempo possession. For that generation of players, it worked. But, like everything, it finally came to an end.
Replacing that generation was difficult, as Spain failed to make it out of group play at the 2014 World Cup and was then eliminated in the round of 16 in 2018 and 2022. But after the 2022 exit, Spain took big steps in its evolution by hiring Luis de la Fuente to coach the first team.
It was a bold hiring because, despite going three World Cups without winning a qualifying match, Spain decided to continue on the same path and bet on an insider.
De La Fuente’s new approach
Luis de la Fuente is a veteran coach in the Spanish system. (Photo by MAURO PIMENTEL/AFP via Getty Images)
De la Fuente was promoted from Spain after having successfully coached their youth teams since 2013. Before that, he had been unsuccessful coaching at club level in Spain and Portugal.
But with Spain’s youth teams, de la Fuente had been building something special with a new generation of Spanish players. He won the U19 Euro championship, then moved up the ranks and led the U21 team to the U21 Euro championship. His last stop against the senior team was the 2020 Olympic Games (held in 2021) with the under-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 moved to the first team, he knew what was working. Although he was a connoisseur, he had his own ideas. He didn’t want to get rid of Spain’s fast pace and quick passing style, but instead wanted to breathe new life into it with tactical adjustments.
It made Spain more direct and get the ball into the attacking third quicker. De la Fuente also wanted to create overloads in the center to open up space for the wingers to have more room to operate in one-on-one situations. Then, in defense, he developed a commitment to the team’s shape to close spaces and win the ball back.
But De la Fuente has not acted alone either. Other coaches of the Spanish youth team during their time at the youth level were creating the same system. Just as the players worked together, the coaches did too.
Santi Denia was also coach of the Spanish youth team during that era after being hired in 2010. When de la Fuente became manager of the full team, Denia was hired to replace him with the Spanish under-21 team and the 2024 Olympic team.
The Spanish summer of 2024
Spain won Euro 2024 for the first time since 2012. (Photo by Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Working in unison, de la Fuente and Denia created an incredible summer of 2024 for Spanish football.
First there was the senior team at Euro 2024, where De la Fuente’s team won all seven of its games to win the title. The road was extremely difficult. Spain won its three group stage matches against Italy, Croatia and Albania without conceding a goal. Then, in the round of 16, they beat Georgia, hosts Germany, France and then England in the final.
As for the Olympic team, Dénia won the gold medal playing basically with the same system. In the round of 16, Spain defeated Japan and Morocco and 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)
As important as it was for Spain to win the Euro and Olympic gold medal, Denia was able to develop players who made seamless transitions to the full team after playing the same system.
Five players from the Olympic gold-winning team made the World Cup squad, including key players Pau Cubarsí and Álex Baena. There would have been six if star striker Fermín López had not broken his foot just before the tournament.
“Luis is a master at team management,” Denia recently told FIFA. “He understands how the players work, knows how to guide them and feels who should start each match. He adds his own touch to an established model, taking into account the profiles of the players. That has given results to the association in recent years and has helped us win titles. We believe in that 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 system and style of play that was consistent within Spain’s youth team and across several clubs in the country. That helped make it easier to name a squad for the 2026 World Cup.
But it was not without controversy either. When the squad was called up it was not made up of a single Real Madrid player. Meanwhile, La Liga rival Barcelona 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 said that the squad was “perfect” and that “they are the 26 players we wanted.”
Once again, it was de la Fuente’s belief in the system.
“The best players are not only in Real Madrid, Barcelona or Atlético. There are very good players in other clubs,” explained de la Fuente before the tournament. “As we know Spanish football deeply, we choose those that we believe best adapt to our system.”
The last two months have proven that De la Fuente was right. In the first seven matches of the World Cup, Spain has not lost and, surprisingly, has only conceded one goal. Their only flaws were a 0-0 draw against Cape Verde and a goal conceded in the 2-1 win over Belgium in the quarter-finals.
Former French World Cup winner Thierry Henry, who now serves as an analyst for FOX Sports, knows de la Fuente’s system well. He coached the French under-23 team at the Olympic Games, which lost to Santi Denia and Spain in the gold medal match.
“The Spanish team finds a way to be successful at all levels,” Henry said after Spain defeated France. “Women’s football, the youth tournaments, the Olympic Games, I lost a final against them, again and again they come. Identity and philosophy, everyone plays the same way at all levels. The coach was the coach of the youth team normally, but since he knows the system and all the players know the system, you can see that it is a team with stars. But above all, it is a team effort. Today, we have not been in the game because mainly because when the Spanish team receives the ball, they do not give you the ball back. “
“I also want to give credit to the entire system for what they put in place,” Henry added. “Because Spain never won like that and now it wins at all levels.”
Spain and its impressive system will now be put to the test: against a Messi-led Argentina that is the reigning World Cup champion and two-time defending Copa América champion. The ultimate system versus the ultimate star.
