At first glance, Luis de la Fuente could easily be mistaken for a college professor — calm, measured and scholarly, hardly the sort of figure who intimidates his pupils. Yet the 65-year-old grew up in an era when Spanish football was decided by who survived the tackle, not who passed around it. As Athletic Club’s left-back, he made 196 appearances across the 1980s and early 1990s and was on the pitch the day Andoni Goikoetxea shattered Diego Maradona‘s ankle in the infamous “Butcher of Bilbao” match.
Four decades later, De la Fuente built Spain’s calmest and most complete side. They conceded just one goal throughout the World Cup, the fewest ever by a men’s champion, and reclaimed football’s biggest prize by playing with remarkable clarity rather than chaos. But this was never a golden generation that simply arrived at his doorstep. He built it himself, guiding players through Spain’s Under-19s, Under-21s and Olympic side before moulding them into a senior team that reflected his own footballing ideals. And while comparisons with the 2010 World Cup-winning side were inevitable, De la Fuente resisted the temptation to recreate tiki-taka. Instead, he modernised it.
What made Spain the toughest team
Euro 2024 was about breaking old orthodoxy. De la Fuente inherited a side that often suffocated itself with sterile possession. His biggest change was to get the ball quickly into space for Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams, trusting them to attack defenders one-on-one. The gamble paid off as Spain repeatedly scored through wide combinations and found decisive contributions from players coming off the bench.
At the World Cup, he refined that blueprint further.
Spain frequently morphed into a 2-3-5 shape in possession. The central midfielders dropped deeper during build-up, often positioning themselves closer to the centre-backs than Dani Olmo, who operated between the lines. The structure tempted opponents out of shape before quick switches of play through the full-backs created space for Spain’s compact front five to rotate through central pockets. It was a slower-burning, far harder-to-press evolution of Spain’s traditional possession game , one that made them almost impossible to disrupt.
Every knockout demanded a different Spain
Spain did not rely on one system to beat every opponent. If anything, their knockout run showed a team capable of adapting without ever compromising its identity. Against each heavyweight, De la Fuente devised a tailored plan, and Spain executed it with ruthless precision.
Against Portugal in the Round of 16, both sides lined up in a 4-2-3-1 and largely cancelled each other out for long stretches. De la Fuente’s subtle adjustment was to push Pedri higher from the double pivot once Spain settled inside Portugal’s half. Rodri remained alone at the base of midfield, screening transitions while dictating the tempo. It effectively gave Spain an extra attacker between the lines without sacrificing defensive balance.
At the back, 19-year-old Pau Cubarsi was entrusted with the task of shadowing Cristiano Ronaldo. He did it superbly, denying the Portuguese captain any meaningful influence in dangerous areas.
The semifinal against France, billed as ‘best attack vs best defence’, was instead decided in midfield. Rodri was at the centre of everything. Every French attack eventually ran into the 2024 Ballon d’Or winner. Whether intercepting passes, breaking up play or calmly recycling possession, Rodri dictated the rhythm of the contest. Alongside Fabian Ruiz and Dani Olmo, he completely controlled the middle of the park, starving France of territory and time.
France’s midfield quickly ran out of solutions as Spain constantly outnumbered them, pressed from every angle and prevented clean progression through the thirds. Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele were left isolated, while the eventual Golden Boot winner failed to register a single shot on target.
Spain out-tackled France 22-14, won 14 of those tackles to France’s eight, and claimed 55.9 per cent of all duels, France’s poorest duel-winning percentage in a World Cup match for nearly five decades.
A similar blueprint dismantled Argentina in the final.
Spain simply cut off Lionel Messi’s supply line. The Argentine captain, who had entered the final with eight goals and four assists, spent much of the evening wandering in search of possession. Spain controlled 60 per cent of the ball, completed 774 of their 896 passes, and reduced Argentina to just two attempts after the 118th minute, neither of which tested Unai Simon.
When Enzo Fernandez’s dismissal further tilted the balance, Spain calmly tightened their grip before substitutes Williams and Ferran Torres combined for the decisive breakthrough in extra time.
Spain’s silent warriors
Much of the spotlight rightly fell on Rodri and Spain’s midfield, but Cubarsi and Aymeric Laporte were every bit as influential in building the tournament’s best defence.
Cubarsi completed 668 passes across the World Cup, second only to Rodri, while Laporte added another 618. It was remarkable output for a centre-back pairing built around a 19-year-old and a veteran who had spent the previous two seasons rebuilding his career away from Europe’s elite.
Cubarsi announced himself as one of the tournament’s breakout stars. He shadowed Cristiano Ronaldo superbly against Portugal, produced 10 defensive interventions against France, and followed it up with another composed display in the final against Argentina. He deservedly walked away with the Young Player of the Tournament award.
On either side of them, Marc Cucurella and Pedro Porro provided the width that made Spain’s system tick.
With the front five remaining narrow, both full-backs constantly stretched the pitch, overlapping into advanced areas and arriving as spare men in the final third. Porro’s adventurous positioning produced crucial goals against Austria and France, while Cucurella repeatedly combined with Mikel Oyarzabal down the left, supplying two assists during the knockout rounds.
Out of possession, however, they were just as important. Both closed down wide areas with astonishing speed, ensuring Spain’s centre-backs were rarely dragged into uncomfortable situations.
Pressing that turned mistakes into chances
If Spain were patient with the ball, they were utterly relentless without it. No team recovered possession in the attacking third more frequently than La Roja. Spain regained the ball almost nine times per game inside the opposition half, second only to Germany across the tournament, while taking just 11.6 seconds on average to win it back after losing possession, the fastest recovery time among all semifinalists.
Opponents were repeatedly forced into mistakes in areas where three or four Spanish shirts were already waiting.
That relentless pressing translated directly into chances. In the final alone, Spain recovered possession 28 times inside Argentina’s half, a statistic that led directly to 10 attempts on goal.
Rodri and Olmo: Spain’s control tower
Rodri arrived at the World Cup after two injury-plagued seasons with Manchester City, yet looked every bit the player who lifted the Ballon d’Or in 2024.
He completed 790 passes during the tournament, eclipsing Xavi’s record from Spain’s victorious 2010 campaign, while also leading his team in touches, progressive carries and successful tackles.
Olmo, on the other hand, disrupted opponents further forward. Operating between the lines, he constantly dragged holding midfielders and centre-backs out of position, creating spaces others could exploit. His movement proved decisive against France, repeatedly pulling Maxence Lacroix and Dayot Upamecano away from the defensive line before Pedro Porro burst into the vacated channel to score.
Together, Rodri and Olmo gave Spain complete command of every phase of the game, one controlling possession, the other dismantling opposition structure.
Mikel Oyarzabal’s reinvention
Oyarzabal never looked like a conventional No. 9. For much of his career, he operated as a winger before reinventing himself as a striker after recovering from the serious ACL injury that sidelined him for nearly a year in 2022. That transformation paid off spectacularly at this World Cup, where he finished as Spain’s leading scorer with nine goals.
Unlike many modern forwards, Oyarzabal constantly drifted into midfield, linked play, created space for Williams and Yamal to attack from wide positions, and then timed his runs into the box with remarkable intelligence. His movement gave Spain’s attack its unpredictability.
Against France, it was his clever positioning that repeatedly dragged the centre-backs out of shape, opening the lane Porro exploited to score. In the final, he again sacrificed personal glory, dropping deeper to knit attacks together before Williams recycled possession for Torres’ extra-time winner.
He finished the tournament as Spain’s top scorer, yet his greatest contribution was making everyone around him better.
Put it all together and Spain produced the most complete team at the World Cup. The simply won because each player understood his role.
