Spain, “an author team”

The Spanish team, “an author team whose leader is on the bench”, will go far in the World Cup. This is what Sergio Santos ventures, in charge of the selection in Relevo, the new digital newspaper of Vocento; Carlos Martínez, main narrator of the League on Movistar Plus+; Juan Carlos Rivero, the voice of La Roja on TVE; and JJ Santos, deputy director and sports presenter on Telecinco. All of them agree in highlighting the “courage” of Luis Enrique due to his style of play and for having formed a very young group that always wants to dominate, exhibits collective defensive sacrifice and surrenders to pressure. Josep Pedrerol, host and director of ‘El Chiringuito’, departs from this optimistic line: «I’m not excited. The ignoring of Betis and Real bothers me. And I miss Aspas.”

Sergio Santos Relief

“The players believe in the coach’s message”

The youngest of the generation of journalists who analyze the national team, Sergio Santos, trusts “a lot” in this group. “When you talk to the players in private, they are to death with the coach and they believe in his idea. What Luis Enrique tells them will happen then it happens on the pitch. That is the secret of this team, that the players believe in Luis Enrique’s message. They are his soldiers,” proclaims the editor of Relevo, for whom Spain “is more of a team than a selection.” “There are no egos, no individualities. One of the good things that the coach has achieved is that no one knows if he is going to play or not and he does not get angry for not playing. That healthy internal competition makes them improve each other and that will give a plus with respect to other teams », he predicts. “The weakest point is inexperience,” he admits.

Carlos Martinez Movistar +

“It is a very difficult team to beat”

“Spain has managed to be a very difficult team to beat, to unravel, and that in a short championship like a World Cup can be an important weapon,” proclaims Carlos Martínez, convinced that the team “is going to play a great role” and to whom It would not surprise him “that he plays the semifinals and even reaches higher.” “Increasingly we are going to be a team capable of beating anyone and not capable of losing to anyone,” he predicts. “Luis Enrique has managed to make us a team”, recognizes who gives as an example the recent case of the heroic and surprising European champion basketball team: “If we look at that Scariolo team we will be able to verify the value of a team in a competition like a World Cup. We don’t have a Messi, an Mbappé or a Neymar to make a selection around them, but rather a selection made up of a very clear average talent, with a quite evident capacity for sacrifice and solidarity. Here the common and collective role prevails.

The biggest flaw that Carlos Martínez sees in La Roja “is the lack of conversion of the opportunities that are generated.” “If this team were able to convert a significant percentage of the chances generated, it would be a fearsome team,” he says.

Juan Carlos Rivero TVE

“This selection will not fail”

Juan Carlos Rivero is also sure that “Spain is not going to fail.” “I have a lot of trust in this team that works as a team, that works very well, that knows how to defend very well, that plays in the opposite field and that occupies the spaces very well”, he points out. “There are footballers who make it to the national team and have a higher performance than they have in their teams, and it is a great merit of the coach,” adds Rivero.

«I like Luis Enrique’s style because it is a brave, daring style, in which he generally does not change much depending on the rival. Spain tries to have its own personality,” says the narrator and presenter of TVE, who does not hide the fact that, however, “someone is missing who is capable of deciding on his own when everything goes wrong, because the national team does not currently have a player that can be depended on when everything else falls apart.

Juan Carlos Rivero does not give too much importance to the lack of forcefulness in attack: «The lack of goals is an endemic evil of many teams. In the end it’s a question not only of talent, but of opportunity, of the moment each player has. Sometimes we have not had a goal and other times we have left over”.

Josep Pedrerol El Chiringuito

“I’m worried about the attack, we don’t have scorers”

The director and host of the successful nightly sports program ‘El Chiringuito’ is clearly annoyed with the call. “I’m not excited. The ignoring of Betis and Real Sociedad annoys me. And I miss Aspas. I hope to get hooked when the World Cup starts. I have a week to psych myself up that this selection is not Luis Enrique’s, but everyone’s or almost everyone’s,” reflects Pedrerol.

For the Catalan journalist, the performance of La Roja is “an unknown quantity”. “It is a young team with a leader on the bench and not on the pitch. With many quality players but with little continuity in their teams », he says, before adding a concern:« The attack. We don’t have scorers.”

JJ Santos Telecinco Sports

“This selection drowns any rival”

«I also like the style of commanding the games, in addition to the fact that we have the exact number of veterans and very, very young people. There was a certain conservatism when raising the kids to the absolute. When a player is very good at 18 or 19 years of age, you have to leave stories behind and raise him, and I like that about Luis Enrique”, comments JJ Santos, for whom “youth has its advantages and disadvantages”. «To win a World Cup you need youth, daring and quality, but also a little bit of experience. We won the World Cup because we had people who were already seasoned, and we still don’t have it now, but I prefer this to going with a more conservative team.

For him, the great strength of the team is “the physical aspect and the pressure to which the rival is subjected with Luis Enrique.” «The fundamental weapon of Spain right now is that it drowns any rival. And his weakest points, that in defense we are not very reliable », he points out.