There may not be a clear favorite on Sunday when Spain and Argentina meet in the FIFA World Cup final, but there are very discernable differences in the way each team arrived at this point.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Argentina, Lionel Messi is the star. He is the World Cup\u2019s all-time leading scorer with 21 goals. In 2022, he was the tournament\u2019s best player with seven goals and three assists. Entering Sunday, he has eight goals and four assists at this World Cup. \u00a0Unquestionably, Messi has a supporting cast with Argentina that consists of global stars. But Messi is the<\/i> star.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the other side, it is a completely different approach.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Spain, there are world-class players on the roster, but the team is the star. Even with a player such as Lamine Yamal, who was recently a finalist for the Ballon d\u2019Or as an 18-year-old, no single player is above the team or its system. Instead, every player fills a role within that system and sticks to that role.<\/p>\n
Former Paris Saint-Germain, AC Milan, and Inter Milan star forward and now FOX Sports analyst Zlatan Ibrahimovi\u0107 put it succinctly immediately following Spain\u2019s 2-0 win over France in the World Cup semifinal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“If I speak about Spain, I don’t speak about one star,” Ibrahimovi\u0107 said. “The team is the star. When they shine, they shine collectively \u2014 even if you have Yamal. This is not a team that is dependent on one player. It is not an individual performance. It is a team performance. Everything they do is as a team.”<\/p>\n
The 2010 World Cup champions (Photo by Shaun Botterill – FIFA\/FIFA via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n At the heart of this team is a system that has been evolving for many years. From 2004-2008, Spain was coached by Luis Aragon\u00e9s. Then, from 2008-2016, La Roja was led by Vicente del Bosque. Those years saw Spain achieve unprecedented success, winning the Euros in 2008 and 2012 along with the World Cup in 2010. Those teams were led by a wave of talent that included David Villa, Fernando Torres, Cesc F\u00e0bregas, Andr\u00e9s Iniesta, Gerard Piqu\u00e9, and Carles Puyol.<\/p>\n At that time, Spain (and Barcelona) developed and perfected the “tiki-taka” style of playing which featured constant short passes, players forming triangles to have multiple passing options, and a heavy emphasis on possession with a high tempo. For that generation of players, it worked. But, like all things, it ultimately came to an end.\u00a0<\/p>\n Replacing that generation was difficult as Spain failed to get out of group play at the 2014 World Cup and then were bounced in the round of 16 in 2018 and 2022. But following the 2022 exit is when Spain\u2019s team took huge steps in its evolution in hiring Luis de la Fuente to coach the first team.\u00a0<\/p>\n It was a bold hire for Spain because, despite now having gone three World Cups without winning a knockout game, Spain decided to remain on the same track and go with an insider.<\/p>\n Luis de la Fuente is a longtime coach in Spain’s system. (Photo by MAURO PIMENTEL \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n When he moved to the first team, he knew what was working. Despite him being an insider, he had his own ideas. He didn\u2019t want to get rid of Spain\u2019s high-tempo and quick passing style, but instead wanted to breathe new life into it with tactical tweaks.\u00a0<\/p>\n He had Spain to be more direct and get the ball into the attacking third more quickly. De la Fuente also wanted to create overloads centrally to open space up for wingers to have more room to operate in one-on-one situations. Then, on defense, there is a commitment to the team\u2019s shape to close space and win the ball back.<\/p>\n But de la Fuente has also not been acting alone. Other managers of Spain\u2019s youth national teams during his time also at the youth level were also creating the same system. Just as the players work together, the Spanish coaches were as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n Santi Denia was also a Spanish youth national team coach during that era when he was hired in 2010. When de la Fuente was hired as the full team manager, Denia was hired to replace de la Fuente with Spain\u2019s U-21 team and also the Olympic team for 2024.<\/p>\n Spain won the 2024 Euro for the first time since 2012. (Photo by Jose Breton\/Pics Action\/NurPhoto via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n Just as important as winning the Euros and the Olympic gold medal was for Spain, also important was that Denia was able to develop players who were able to make a seamless transition to the full team due to playing the same system.\u00a0<\/p>\n Five players from the Olympic gold medal team made the World Cup team, including key players Pau Cubars\u00ed and \u00c1lex Baena. It would have been six if star forward Ferm\u00edn L\u00f3pez hadn’t suffered a broken foot just before the World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Luis is a master of managing a team: he understands how players tick, he knows how to guide them, and he senses who should start each match,” Denis told FIFA recently. “He adds his own twist to an established model, taking into account the players\u2019 profiles. That has delivered results for the association in recent years and helped us win titles. We believe in that model, and Luis believes in it more than anyone.”<\/p>\n De la Fuente was able to help create and implement a new system and style of play that was consistent within Spain\u2019s youth team and several of the country\u2019s clubs. That helped to make it easier to name a roster for the 2026 World Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n But it was also not without controversy. When the roster was named, it did not consist of a single Real Madrid player. LaLiga rivals Barcelona, meanwhile, sent eight players onto the World Cup team.\u00a0<\/p>\n In Spain, it was highly controversial and almost unthinkable to have Real Madrid absent from La Roja on the biggest stage. For de la Fuente, he said the roster was “perfect” and that “it\u2019s the 26 players we wanted.”<\/p>\n Once again, it was de la Fuente\u2019s belief in the system.\u00a0<\/p>\n “The best players aren’t just at Real Madrid, Barcelona, or Atl\u00e9tico. There are very good players at other clubs,” de la Fuente explained before the tournament. “As we have a deep understanding of Spanish football, we pick the ones we believe best fit our system.”<\/p>\n The past two months have proven de la Fuente to be correct. In the first seven games of the World Cup, Spain has not lost and has shockingly conceded just one goal. Its only blemishes were a 0-0 draw against Cape Verde and a goal conceded in a 2-1 win over Belgium in the quarterfinal.\u00a0<\/p>\n Former French World Cup winner Thierry Henry, who now serves as an analyst for FOX Sports and knows de la Fuente\u2019s system well. He coached France\u2019s U-23 team at the Olympics which lost to Santi Denia and Spain in the gold medal game.<\/p>\n “The Spanish team finds a way to be successful at every level,” Henry said after Spain defeated France. “Women’s football, youth tournaments, the Olympics \u2014 I lost a final against them \u2014 time and time again they are coming. Identity and philosophy, they all play the same way at every level. The coach was the youth team coach normally, but because he knows the system and all the players know the system, you can see that it is a team with stars in it but first and foremost, it is a team effort. Today, we were not in the game because mainly because when the Spanish team gets the ball, they don’t give you the ball back.”<\/p>\n “I also want to give credit to the whole system of what they put in place, because Spain never used to win like that, and now they win at every level.”<\/p>\n Spain and its impressive system will now be put to the ultimate test \u2013 against a Messi-led Argentina side that is reigning World Cup champions and two-time defending Copa Am\u00e9rica champions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY There may not be a clear favorite on Sunday when Spain and Argentina meet in the FIFA World Cup final, but there are very discernable differences in the way each team arrived at this point.\u00a0 For Argentina, Lionel Messi is the star. He is the World Cup\u2019s all-time leading scorer with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}