Spain differ in one aspect from the other pretenders for this year’s World Cup. Argentina, unbeaten in 35 games going into the tournament finals, can call on Lionel Messi, playing in his fifth and final World Cup; England have Harry Kane, who will likely become the nation’s all-time top scorer in Qatar; Brazil have Neymar Jr, famous for being famous rather than his footballing achievements at this stage; and France have the electrifying Kylian Mbappe to help them try and retain the trophy.
Spain do not have a star player. Their key personality is on the bench: their manager, Luis Enrique, who is probably the most able coach in the tournament – he was a treble-winning coach with Barça in 2015; aged 52, he will likely go back to managing a top European club if he steps down after the World Cup. It’s been floated, for example, that he might take over at Atletico Madrid if Diego Simeone’s glorious cycle at the club draws to a close in the summer.
Since Luis Enrique was appointed Spain manager – after the debacle in Russia in 2018 when team coach Julen Lopetegui was fired on the eve of the tournament – he has dominated the headlines. No other Spain coach since Javier Clemente in the 1990s has been as contentious. Luis Enrique’s connections with Barça – and his abrasive, contrarian personality – have made him a lightning rod for disaffection in Spain, especially with the Madrid-based sporting press.
In the summer of 1996 Luis Enrique became a rare high-profile player to cross the Great Divide, leaving Real Madrid to join Barça (historically, a lot more star players like Bernd Schuster, Luís Figo and Michael Laudrup have gone the other direction). When Luis Enrique arrived in Barcelona he told a press conference he didn’t like seeing his Panini football card with a Real Madrid jersey, adding that “the azulgrana [the blue and red of Barça] suits me better”, which drew great laughter from the journalists present.
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Luis Enrique became an instant favourite with Barça fans. He finished his eight years playing as club captain, a notable distinction for a footballer born in Asturias on the other side of the country. He returned to Barcelona as Barça B coach in 2008, taking over from Pep Guardiola in that role. He later became head coach in 2014, clashing with Lionel Messi in his first season in charge, in a dispute resolved by peace-keeping work from Xavi Hernández. Luis Enrique stepped down in 2017 after three trophy-laden seasons.
By a curious quirk the majority of Spain’s starting XI at the moment, at least five or six players, are from Barça: Jordi Alba and Eric Garcia in defence; the midfield trio of Sergio Busquets, Pedri and Gavi; and Ferran Torres up front. Only one Real Madrid player, Dani Carvajal, if he’s preferred over Chelsea captain César Azpilicueta, will make the starting team in Qatar. It’s galling for fans of the national team – which is a vessel for strident patriotism in Spain, a country riven by politics and the wounds of a civil war which haven’t healed – that an anti-Madridista is head coach of a team rammed with players from Barça.
Fans of Barça are at best ambivalent about the fortunes of the Spain national team in the World Cup. It’s like, say, what Derry nationalists felt about Martin O’Neill captaining Northern Ireland in the 1982 finals. Every time FC Barcelona plays in the Copa del Rey final, Barça fans boo the national anthem. To wave a Spain flag in the city of Barcelona is to be identified with Spain’s right wing. Flags are provocative symbols in the country.
In October 2017, for example, Spanish national guard police crushed an informal referendum on Catalan independence, dragging women by the hair from polling stations and injuring over 800 people. Later that day Barça played Las Palmas behind closed doors in a La Liga game. The Las Palmas players stitched the Spain flag into their jerseys out of solidarity with the rest of Spain. Barça’s crest contains the Catalan flag.
Luis Enrique has been successful in rallying the troops behind his flag. From 2014 until 2018, Spain failed to win a knockout game in three tournament finals. Under Luis Enrique, Spain were unlucky to lose in the semi-final of Euro 2020 to Italy on penalties. They reached the final of the 2021 Nations League, beating Germany 6-0 en route before losing 2-1 to France in the final; and they have qualified for the 2023 Nations League final four.
Luis Enrique has enraged his critics while in the job: he constantly tinkers with his line-ups; in 2021 he left Sergio Ramos out of Spain’s squad to play in the European Championship finals. Manchester United’s goalkeeper David de Gea has been discarded in favour of a sweeper keeper, Unai Simón. He gave 17-year-old Gavi, who had only played a handful of games for Barça, his national team debut in October 2021 against Italy. It was seen as a reckless piece of showmanship. The gamble has paid off, though.
Luis Enrique persists in playing Barça’s Garcia in his central defence pairing despite the ball-playing defender’s error-prone ways. Last June, when Spain lost 2-1 to the Czech Republic, Garcia was “in the photo”, as they say Spain, for the game’s match-winner, fluffing a clearance close to the half-way line which let the Czechs break through on goal.
Spain are without a “killer” up front. Luis Enrique has shown patience and perseverance in going with Alvaro Morata as his No 9. Morata has a fragile temperament. He averages only a goal every three games at club level, having bounced around several clubs during his career, including Real Madrid, Chelsea, Juventus and his current employer Atletico Madrid. Luis Enrique prizes his ability to act as a foil for those playing around him. It’s a quintessential Luis Enrique ploy.
Luis Enrique’s Spain team are a collective. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Spain has been a factory for producing footballers. Barça and Real Madrid’s youth academies have consistently provided the most young players per club in Europe’s top leagues for more than a decade. Spain have won eight Euro under-19 tournaments in the last two decades.
It’s this well that Luis Enrique draws from, peppering his team with young, sharp technical footballers like Pedri, Gavi, Ansu Fati and Villarreal’s Yéremy Pino, as well as Athletic Bilbao’s Nico Williams, a bolter on the plane to Qatar. Spain under Luis Enrique have at times been inconsistent. They suffer against weaker teams who sit back and let them have the ball, but if they emerge from a tricky group, which includes Germany, Costa Rica and Japan, no one will want to face their young tyros.
