Cristiano’s gunpowder threatens the premiere of Spain

A year after they drew 0-0 in a friendly played at the Metropolitano that served as a set-up for the imminent multi-venue European Championship, Spain and Portugal meet again to start their journey in the third edition of the League of Nations. A tournament whose winners were inaugurated precisely by the quinas in 2019, by beating the Netherlands in the duel that resolved the ‘final four’ held in the Portuguese domains, and that last October left Luis’s team one step away from glory Enrique, defeated in Milan by France in a stake marked by controversy.

The Spanish team far surpassed that disappointment by sealing, weeks later, the passport for the World Cup in Qatar at the La Cartuja stadium. A goal from Morata broke Sweden’s resistance and saved La Roja from that dreaded playoff that the block led by Fernando Santos did have to face. The defeat against Serbia on the last day of the qualifying phase condemned the Iberian neighbor to risk his presence in the great planetary event at the end of March, first against Turkey and then against the surprising North Macedonia, which he knocked down with a Bruno Fernandes’ double that finally opened the doors of the exotic World Cup that the Asian country will host between November 21 and December 18 of this year.

With their sights set on that event getting closer and closer, Luis Enrique’s troop returns to Seville to face a tall challenge against the always demanding army led by Cristiano Ronaldo in a confrontation that is the starting gun within the exhausting carousel of four games that the Spanish team will have to face in just a week and a half. On Sunday he will visit the thriving Czech Republic in Prague, four days later he will challenge the ulcerous Switzerland in Geneva and close his intense agenda on the 12th in Malaga dealing again with the Czech Republic.

A tiresome calendar that will serve the 24 summoned by Luis Enrique to close an exhausting season. However, none of them are thinking about the holidays yet because the World Cup is just around the corner and every call from the Asturian is an opportunity to secure a seat on that flight that no one wants to miss. Although the coach has well outlined the block with which he will tackle the challenge of trying to return Spain to the pinnacle of world football, there are still places available and these four Nations League games, plus the two set in September, will help him to carry out the final screen.

crack to break

Luis Enrique, who will not finally be able to count on Thiago due to injury, has Eric García between cottons. To this is added the loss of Laporte, which will force him to recompose the defense without the one who has been his undisputed boss since the Manchester City defender took the alternative twelve months ago in the aforementioned clash against the Portuguese. The return of Iñigo Martínez is an important relief due to the experience and power that the Athletic center-back brings. Another happy return is that of Busquets, who will again captain La Roja after Luis Enrique exempted him from the March friendlies against Albania and Iceland. Above, Morata will once again be the benchmark, with Raúl de Tomás in the chamber.

Opposite will be a Portugal that Spain has not won for more than a decade. Specifically, since June 29, 2010, when the platoon led by Vicente del Bosque at the time beat the Portuguese in the second round of the World Cup in South Africa. Since then, the balance between the two powerhouses is four draws and a 4-0 thrashing of the fifths in a friendly that hosted the Lisbon Estádio da Luz in November 2010.

Fernando Santos will not be able to count on Vitinha, who tested positive for covid-19 a few days ago, nor on Joao Félix, injured in the last stretch of the campaign, but he has a fearsome group in which Pepe is still the boss of the rearguard , Bernardo Silva and Bruno Fernandes provide fantasy in the engine room and Cristiano puts his inexhaustible gunpowder at the service of the cause.

The Manchester United attacker has signed a campaign to forget with his club in the collective section, but his records in the individual facet continue to sow panic. Top scorer in national team football with 115 goals, he is nine games short of the absolute record for caps held by Malaysian Soh Chin Ann, who he could hunt down in the Qatar World Cup, and seeks to raise his tally against La Roja, against the who has only seen the door, albeit triple, in the World Cup in Russia.