The Spain we once knew is gone for good

Although Spain qualified for Euro 2020 on Tuesday with a late 1-1 draw against Sweden, the days of winning three major tournaments in a row are dead and buried.

The golden age of Spanish football does not seem like a distant memory, but rather, a flickering light that some are desperate to keep on.

At club level, the stranglehold on European football that Barcelona and Real Madrid exerted by winning five straight Champions Leagues and eight since 2008-09 is finished, whether we recognize it or not. Real are a shell of their former selves, while Barcelona have serious fundamental issues from board level to the manager to the players on the pitch.

Although the dominance of 2008-12 still remains fresh in the memory of Spanish football fans and pundits alike, who seemingly always put La Roja among the favorites for any tournament they enter, Spain have been just as poor in recent years as they were dominant a decade ago.

Just as Spain trounced their way to a World Cup crown and two European Championships in a row, they have not won a knockout stage match for three consecutive tournaments, bowing out in comical fashion.

While the signs have been coming following the departures of generational players such as Xavi, Andrés Iniesta, Carles Puyol, Xabi Alonso, Gerard Piqué, David Villa, and others this iteration of the Spanish national team is nowhere near the lofty standards of the past.

For the first time in Spanish history, players from 11 different clubs represented Spain in the 1-1 draw against Norway under manager Robert Moreno. In addition, the club with the most representation in the side is Villarreal, with four. Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Atlético Madrid, the “Big Three” of the domestic game, have a combined four players in this 24-man squad. This is a far cry from the days of old, when seven Barcelona players lined up across from the Dutch at Soccer City in Johannesburg nine years ago.

Since that famous victory, Spain have been embarrassed in a World Cup group stage, dumped out of the Euros by an Italian side that would not even qualify for the 2018 World Cup, and played perhaps the most apathetic match of football in recent memory as they were dispatched on penalties by Russia.

With Euro 2020 rapidly approaching, while the Spanish may want to consider themselves among the favorites, the performances and overall quality of this squad simply does not justify that delegation.

Both stylistically and from a personnel perspective, this team is caught in between trying to replicate the glory of the past while turning over a new leaf. While the heart of nearly every Spanish team has come through midfield and passing ability, the furious one-touch passing tiki-taka attacks of old seem to be gone, only to be replaced with monotonous control of the ball in the middle third and around the penalty area, with no real sign of drive or goal-scoring desire.

La Roja remain vulnerable on the counter-attack, and with an unsettled goalkeeper situation and a rotating door of replacements for Piqué, the ever-declining Sergio Ramos, the most capped player in the country’s history, remains easily the team’s best defender. Moreover, Spain have not had a regular goalscorer up top since the departure of Villa and Fernando Torres, with Rodrigo Moreno appearing to be the best of an average group including Gerard Moreno, Álvaro Morata, and Diego Costa.

While there are bright spots in this team, especially with the emergence of young talent in midfield such as Napoli’s Fabián Ruiz, Rodri, and Dani Ceballos, Spain do not possess such talent in attack in defense or attack to complement their strength, and recent results prove this. While consecutive 1-1 draws against Norway and Sweden may not set off the alarms now, they are inevitable warning signs for the forthcoming European Championships: this team is not the dominant force we once knew.