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Three successive tournaments without a knockout win have followed the golden era started by Luis Aragonés, but the latest coach has already started to make onlookers take note

Spain’s players were at the movies last week. On Tuesday afternoon, across the pitch from the residency and into the main hall at the federation’s Las Rozas HQ, north-west of Madrid, the entire squad sat for the first showing of a documentary about Luis Aragonés, the coach who started it all, leading them to European Championship success in 2008. Of the 23 players in the current set-up, only Sergio Ramos and Raúl Albiol are left from that team but former players joined them for the film, put together by Aragonés’s fitness coach Jesús Paredes. There were some tears and a lot of laughter.

In the build up to the 2008 final against Germany, Aragonés kept referring to Michael Ballack as Wallace, until a player corrected him. “I’ll call him whatever I like,” the coach replied, and then he proved it: in the tunnel minutes before kick-off he sidled up to the German midfielder and said “All right, Wallace?” Spain’s players couldn’t help giggling, the tension gone. They walked out in Vienna and won a major trophy for first time in 44 years, just as Aragonés had always told them they could. Should, in fact. “If I don’t win with this team, I’m shit,” he said.

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from Football | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2IVQ1Yz