Spain, a semifinalist without Real Madrid players and 17 rookies

BARCELONA – Luis Enrique already has Spain where not many thought, some trusted and not a few believed impossible. Spain is a semi-finalist of the Eurocup with a rookie team, a squad with 17 debutants in a great tournament, a call-up without Real Madrid players, a group devoted to the leadership of their coach, sarcastically ignorant of all the noise outside a locker room that he has made his own and into which he has injected a commendable work culture, ambition and resistance.

This is not the best Spain that is remembered, it is a team in renewal, in transit towards a future in which it can once again be considered among the greats of the football universe … But it is, at the same time, the spitting image of what displayed by your selector. And as such, it has the luck it deserves.

Oblivious to all the debates that he already knows from his time as a player, when he observed the thousand controversies that Javier Clemente had to endure from the inside or, already from the outside, how Luis Aragonés was harassed the day he decided to dispense with Raúl in continuation to the Fall in the 2006 World Cup, Luis Enrique is an expert in dealing with that poisoned environment that he suffers and enjoys in equal measure.

“The march is going for me,” he proclaimed more than once when he was directing Barcelona. And that march remains around him as a coach of a team that he has managed to keep out of all debates and troubles.

Luis Enrique deserves that luck for the conviction that he transmits and for the personality that he has transferred to the Spanish team. It will be possible to play better or worse (it was not at all his best afternoon that of the match against Switzerland), but the effort, commitment, dedication and fight are taken for granted from the first moment and until the last breath.

After 13 years of that historic round against Italy in the 2008 European Championship that gave the Spaniards the pass to the semifinal, in Saint Petersburg, in the same stadium where three years ago Switzerland fell in the same round against Poland in the Round of 16 of the World Cup, Spain embraced with both hands the fortune that it lacked so many times in the past.

This European Championship has not been a bed of roses for Luis Enrique. He began it having to argue both the absence of Sergio Ramos and the lack of Real Madrid players who put not a few lights on him, he continued with his determination to wait for

Busquets despite his positive for coronavirus, continued with the controversy of the poor condition of the La Cartuja lawn and its changes that separated Marcos Llorente from the title after having used him as a winger.

Against everything the coach rebelled and found the unconditional support of a dressing room devoted to his leadership, which overcame the bumps with Sweden and Poland in their slow but safe transit, without departing from their conditions and understanding that without having at their command the The best team did have the ideal group.

Luck is sought and deserves, in this case, to be found. Switzerland suffered it before the quarterfinal game due to Xhaka’s suspension, suffered it again with the rebound goal and even more so with Embolo’s injury and, finally, with the expulsion of Freuler. The Swiss team took hold of the heroic represented in the figure of Yann Sommer … But it was the afternoon of the Spaniards.

Luck was his. Wanted and found through Unai Simón. Enjoyed by a special trainer. A technician who does not need friends beyond his closest ones and who, viewed with distrust from the journalistic world, has earned applause, respect and even general admiration.