When a FIFA technical study group released a report claiming that the current Spain team could very well be considered the “team of the century”, it left many with raised eyebrows and disdain chuckles.
And you can’t blame them. Fans are still wrapping their head around the fact that Spain, perennial underachievers and laughing stocks for decades and decades, are now one of the elite of international football for their successes over the last two years, the outrageous statistics they have amassed, their No. 1 FIFA World ranking, and for their eye-candy attacking football.
But it’s not just Spain’s European and world conquest or their delightful tiki-taka passing that’s winning admirers. It’s their ability to utterly dominate every opponent, every match in that familiar clockwork precision style of theirs that has commentators, pundits, purists and FIFA officials licking their lips.
Teams like Brazil, Germany, Argentina and Italy have all won World Cups when they didn’t possess the most all-conquering of teams, focusing instead on grinding out results that got them from group match one to the last whistle in the final.
There are many detractors who would laugh at the notion of this Spain side being named the team of the century just because they don’t have the history, reputation and international silverware that Germany, Brazil or Italy can boast. But this is a recognition being given to a specific team in a specific era and there’s no reason why the Spanish Armada shouldn’t be considered one of the greatest sides ever.
Only Germany, France and Brazil have held the world title and their respective continental crown simultaneously. La Furia Roja under Luis Aragones and Vicente del Bosque have also broken a number of records that very few can come close to matching, most notably their 15 match winning run, and their 35-game undefeated streak, a joint-record with the Selecao.
Spain have lost just two internationals in three and a half years, that’s 57 games in total heading into Tuesday’s mouth-watering friendly against Argentina, scoring 126 goals in the process and conceding just 27.
They’ve become the first European nation to win the World Cup outside of their own continent. They became the first team to lift the World Cup after losing their opening game, and while there’s never any doubts about Spain’s attacking weaponry, there’s no question now about how complete the team are after conceding only two goals throughout the finals in South Africa, a record that, as eventual champions, they share with just France (1998) and Italy (2006).
Over the course of the last two years, Spain have beaten England, Argentina and France in friendlies, while in competitive tournaments, they’ve outplayed and defeated Germany twice, convincingly overcame Italy, Netherlands and Portugal... all the usual suspects in the pinnacle of the football family. Fate, however, just wouldn’t let them meet Brazil. Yet.
Football ultimately is about results and achievements. Anyone who said Spain still have to lift the World Cup to prove their true pedigree as one of the greatest footballing sides will now have to submit. Italy may have four World Cup titles and Germany three, but they were won with different teams in different eras. Only the Azzurri of the 30’s and the great Brazil side of the late 50’s and early 60’s have succeeded in defending their crown, and even then, it was back at a time when no more than 16 nations competed in the finals.
The magical and majestic Hungary team in the 50’s which took the game to a whole new level with their revolutionary brand of football, never had any silverware to show. And neither did the Totaalvoetbal Dutch pioneers of the 70’s. The Marco van Basten-led Oranje side that won Euro ‘88 didn’t even qualify for the tournament four years earlier, or the two World Cups before that, and they went home at the Round of 16 in Italia ’90 and lost in the semi-finals at Euro ‘92.
The Spain class of 2008 and beyond can lay claim to making an inspirational impact to the way the game is played with their tiki-taka football, with coaches, players around the world waxing lyrical over their style and fellow national teams aspiring to emulate their playing philosophy. And they have the trophies to back it up.
The only significant record La Roja can aim for now is to become the first footballing nation to successfully win back-to-back continental and world titles simultaneously. Even Brazil haven’t managed that.