Vicente Del Bosque Has to Make Tough Choices If Spain Are to Rise Again

Spain has at its disposal, not just some of the world’s best players, but arguably some of the best of all time, to pick from. Unfortunately what it no longer has is the best team. Or a definite style.

More than anything else in the country, La Roja restored pride to an economically battered nation and put the smile back onto the face of Spanish football. And now it’s over, and like it or not, this is now a side that need to find their style, any style.

What is in place at the moment is a mishmash of ideologies and footballing cultures, little different in fact to just about every country in the world with the possible exception of Germany and Chile; effectively a collection of the best players in the country that go out with a hope and a prayer that everything will be alright on the night, depending then on the individual quality.

Time constraints mean that invariably national teams do not have sufficient time to discover their own particular style. But when they do you will suddenly find a team, like Chile in the last World Cup for example, that despite having players generally considered to be of a lower standard than many of their illustrious opponents, punch well above their weight.

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Of course when you have a team that not only has discovered the style that it wants to play but also finds itself blessed with some of the truly great players to pick from, you end up with something like the Spanish side that ruled the footballing world from 2008 to 2014.

Cast your mind back to 2008 when Luis Aragones enjoyed the "eureka" moment when the "peseta" finally dropped and he knew just what he had to do.

Aragones saw a style played by Barcelona, or better said by Xavi, and he proceeded to pick his team according to those that majored in the style he wanted his side to perform. A passing game, with an emphasis on the midfielders.

Pep Guardiola had not arrived to the first team of FC Barcelona but Aragones realised passing and controlling games was the way forward. Add Fernando Torres, and a strong Real Madrid competitive flavour and you had a style. Only three Barcelona players were regulars in the line up but the presence of Xavi defined everything.

Except of course that it wasn’t as easy as that. Aragones, intelligently, took a huge chance and the introduction of the new style necessitated the sacrifice of some of the country’s footballing icons, most notably Raul.

Vicente del Bosque picked up the baton of a team high on confidence, and with a clear direction, and despite a couple of hiccups, managed to keep the momentum and team spirit going.

Now he finds himself at the crossroads; now more than ever he needs to prove just how good a manager he really is. It’s make-your-mind-up time.

In Koke and Diego Costa he has two fine players whose game focuses around quick transitions and counter attacks, but you’re more likely to find Costa outside the ground selling programmes than moving deep and associating with midfielders as strikers have to do in the style that gave Spain success. Ditto Koke, his education has been different.

If Del Bosque wants to play a counter-attacking game the likes of Koke, Cesc Fabregas, Paco Alcacer and Costa fit the bill. The flip side of that is that it means that players like Sergio Busquets and Andres Iniesta will have to go because, quite simply, that is not their game.

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But here’s the real problem. Any such decision by Del Bosque and his team will fly in the face of the ideologies propounded by the Spanish Football Federation from the very bottom rung of the football ladder right to the summit, namely a passing, possession game, with the emphasis on building from the back.

Whatever happens, something must be done because at the moment Spain is building a side on individual quality and not on a team style. The problem with that is that you are then constantly relying on name players like Costa and Iniesta and whoever, stepping up to the plate, and if they happen to have an off day, then that’s when you start to drop points and lose matches.

For a long time now Iker Casillas, has been Del Bosque’s captain and the most loyal of his generals. The decision to bench him for the match against Luxembourg, planned before the Slovakia game, will have broken his heart. I can’t help but feel it is not going to be the last painful choice the avuncular coach from Salamanca is going to have to make. Or, better said, it should be.