Amaral saves a shot from Cardeñosa on the goal line during the Spain-Brazil 1978 World Cup. /
World | Qualifying phase
Spain only failed to pass the qualifying phase on four occasions and has accumulated eleven consecutive World Cups
Present in all the World Cups since 1978, the Spanish team will face the dreaded play-off if they fail in the double appointment that they will face this week against Greece and Sweden. His status as a finalist in the last edition of the League of Nations ensures that he is at least in the ‘playoffs’ from which the last three tickets will come out within the European zone in the worst possible scenario, but no member of La Roja he wants to risk going through that life or death trance.
The national team has recorded 15 participations and six absences in the 21 editions of the World Cup played to date. He missed two of the first three – 1930 (Uruguay) and 1938 (France) – and failed in the qualifying stages of four other tournaments.
The first blow was taken in 1954, when the young Franco Gemma, son of an Italian manager, took the ballot for Turkey in the draw that settled the tie against the Ottomans, after the tiebreaker match between both teams ended in boards. A dark and bizarre episode known as the ‘elimination of the bambino’ that left Spain without participating in the World Cup in Switzerland.
Four years later, a team in which the nationalized Kubala and Di Stéfano stood out along with the Ramallets, Quincoces, Luis Suárez or Gento was left out of the World Cup in Sweden because of their failure in a group that was completed by Switzerland and Scotland .
The bad streak was broken in Chile 1962 and England 1966, but Spain returned to their old ways when they were left out of the World Cup in Mexico in 1970. Affected by the succession of relays on the bench that prevented giving their own personality to a generation in which they excelled Pirri, Amancio, Luis Aragonés or Gárate, the Spanish team was cut down in a group that ended up leading Belgium over Yugoslavia, after the ‘Cinderella’ Finland nailed the final stab at Helsinki.
Yugoslavia was in charge of officiating as the executioner of Spain in 1974, defeating it in the tiebreaker match held at the Waldstadion in Frankfurt to resolve a qualifying phase in which the Balkan and Spanish teams had finished equaled six points. Katalinski signed the solitary so much that it meant the last absence of Spain in the final phase of a World Cup. Since that tournament hosted by Germany, La Roja has had eleven consecutive appearances, but their appearance in Qatar 2022 is still in danger.
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