Spain Team: The King is Back

(Baonghean.vn) - As the reigning EURO champions, Spain is naturally considered a strong candidate for the championship title. However, before marching to France, coach Del Bosque's team made experts and fans skeptical about their ability to win the title. However, defeating the Czech Republic in the opening match showed that the king is returning to defend his throne.

In recent years, the Spanish national team has dominated world football with 2 European championships (Euro 2008, 2012) and 1 time on top of the world (World Cup 2010). During that successful period, La Roja's power was unstoppable.

In goal, Iker Casillas always makes people crazy with his magical moments. In midfield, Xavi is known as the king of midfield with a top-notch tactical vision.

Next to him is a cunning, agile and skillful Iniesta. In attack, David Villa or Fernando Torres always have weapons to create breakthroughs. Especially on the coaching bench, we cannot fail to mention coach Del Bosque, who has turned Spain into a team that is very difficult to defeat.

The joy of Pique and his teammates in the victory against the Czech Republic in the opening match.

After the success at Euro 2012, the Spanish team began to show signs of running out of steam. A specific example was at the 2014 World Cup, despite having a squad that had just achieved success at the World Cup in South Africa, Coach Del Bosque's team started the group stage with a humiliating defeat to the Netherlands with an unbelievable score of 1-5, and then they had to sadly stop right at the group stage. Since the tournament in Brazil, Coach Del Bosque and his team have played 8 friendly matches against big opponents, but only a notable 2-0 win against England in November 2015, while they easily lost to France, Germany, the Netherlands and drew disappointingly with Italy.

In the Euro 2016 qualifiers, Spain also had a disappointing start when they lost 2-1 to Slovakia. Fortunately, Vicente Del Bosque and his team quickly regrouped and won all 8 of their last matches to finish first in the group, 5 points ahead of the second-placed team. Despite having secured an early ticket to France, the team from the Iberian peninsula played an unconvincing style of play. The narrow wins against Belarus, Macedonia, and Ukraine said it all.

The joy of the Spanish national team when they excellently won the EURO 2012 championship

In a friendly match against Georgia before heading to France, coach Vicente Del Bosque's team unexpectedly fell 1-0 to the team currently ranked 137th in the world. That was like a wake-up call for La Roja before entering the big tournament.

On their way to France this time, the army of "Mr. Mustache" really wants to realize the dream of completing a hat-trick of championships at the biggest European tournament at the national team level. However, Spain also faces certain difficulties in both playing style and personnel. In terms of personnel, since the golden generation of Xavi, Iniesta, Alonso, David Villa, Puyol, Spanish football has not produced any more outstanding names. Not only that, many of La Roja's players have passed the other side of the slope of their careers. This is the biggest obstacle for the team, the current EURO champion, on the way to defending its throne.

Despite the difficulties, when entering the official tournament, the team from the land of bullfighting showed a completely different face. In the first match in the journey to defend the championship 4 years ago, the Spanish team encountered many problems in the attack against the dense and organized defense of the Czech Republic. Strikers like Alvaro Morata and Nolito could not defeat Petr Cech, even though they were given many opportunities. In such a situation, Iniesta's timely brilliance with a pass just in time for Pique to rush up and launch a header that forced Cech to pick the ball out of the net, thereby opening a favorable start for La Roja on the path to defending their title.

Entering the round of 16, this season, the Spanish team is nurturing the dream of reaching the top of EURO glory for the third time.

Cao Anh