Euro 2020: What next for the semifinalist Spain?
Spain – Positives and Negatives
The Euro is nearly over, and attention now turns to the FIFA World Cup, destined to take place – as it stands – in Qatar. A year and a half separate the two tournaments, a year and a half to polish the structures and weed out the deficiencies.
The big negative for Spain, rather unsurprisingly, is their problems up front. Spain scored ten goals in matchday three and four combined spread evenly over the final group game and the first knockout tie.
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Yet, questions persist over their center forwards, one of whom – Alvaro Morata – missed the decisive spot-kick against Italy in the semis. Morata did prove his doubters wrong over the course of the tournament to some extent, but his confidence, understandable, remains as fragile as ever.
Gerard Moreno had a difficult tournament himself, while Dani Olmo – who played as a False Nine against Italy – sparkled, albeit in limited circumstances. Solving the striker crisis should be Spain’s top priority post-Euro 2020.
However, it’s not all doom and gloom for Enrique and Co; Spain, after all, did make it to the semis. Ironically, their best performance in the tournament was in the semifinal loss against Italy: a dominant display on the ball not too dissimilar to the ones in the early 2010s.
Spain had 71 percent possession on the night and won the battle of the two strongest midfields quite easily. Old habits die hard, after all. The next step would be to continue building upon the positives of the tournament.
Spain has the structure; it has a tactically astute head coach and some very, very exciting players (Pedri, my word!). Expectations will be high – as they usually are – when La Roja touches down in Qatar seventeen months from now.