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Every team left in this World Cup has one thing in common: a clear mind.
National teams don’t have time to build the complexity of clubs, so the message should be simple and repeatable.
That’s where Spain has a good advantage. Their football identity has evolved over the decades.
Players and coaches are chosen because they fit the ideal, not the other way around. And since the foundations were already there, they were able to improve their style.
Some argue that they have some advantage over national teams trying a ‘new project’ with a new manager.
De la Fuente has inherited that identity, and to paraphrase what Pep Guardiola once said of Johan Cruyff, de la Fuente “doesn’t build the cathedral, he repaints it from time to time”.
The Spanish manager added layers: more flexibility, more depth, more comfort in transitions, more unpredictability in the final third, more intensity.
As a member of Portugal’s staff told me after their last 16 defeat, Spain are still notorious, still “the easiest team to analyze”, but “the hardest to beat”.
He knows these players because he worked with them for ten years at the youth level.
His coaching decisions reflect this familiarity. His staff will analyze each match in detail and find out what the adjustments are.
Spain did not have a fine for passing through Cape Verde. Against Saudi Arabia, the machine went well again.
Against Uruguay, he insisted on composure, discipline and emotional control, knowing that Spain have historically lost matches drawn into chaos and chaos.
De la Finte admits that in earlier years he would have reacted more emotionally.
He said: “Experience has taught me to face these situations. I’ve been through these games – I’ve lived in them before and I usually lost. Why? Because we don’t know how to play certain types of games.”
“So when someone annoys you, knocks you off your game, breaks your focus, you find yourself interrupting, stopping, and changing tunes to distract you.”
Spain taught him that when they give up who they are, they lose.
His news conference reflected the same values. He prepares them, the director of football of the federation, the media group and also the psychologist of the FA, former player Javier López Vallejo, but he improves when the situation calls for it.
He speaks from his heart. He calls journalists by name because he was taught in the country that “respect starts with knowing the person in front of you”.
He looks people in the eye and sees them as equals. These are not media tricks, he insists.
