Spain head coach Luis de la Fuente has been sleeping well; he just hasn’t been sleeping very much, thanks to his own team’s success and the way it produced Euro 2024’s longest and most unpredictable waiting game.
Finally, as group action wrapped on Wednesday, Spain found out who it was going to play in Cologne on Sunday (3 p.m. ET on FOX), having wondered about the identity of its next opponent for a full week that felt like a year.
De la Fuente says his team is the best in the tournament — who’s going to argue? — but he and his staff took no chances, burning the midnight oil researching and preparing for as many as 11 potential different rivals before that number got whittled down and eventually landed on an inspired underdog.
And a lucky break.
Georgia might be ranked No. 74 in the world, the lowest of any team in Germany this summer, but on the prep side they are a bit of a headache for most teams they face, with their squad of 26 including players who ply their club trade in 18 different countries, including Cyprus, Azerbaijan, Iran and Slovakia.
That would usually mean even more time in front of the video screen and stat database for Spain’s backroom, after Georgia produced the shock of Euro 2024 by beating Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal, sparking national joy and prompting its billionaire former prime minister to gift the team more than $9 million as a reward.
Except that Spain and Georgia were in the same group during qualifying for the tournament, and clashed in a pair of games that Spain won 7-1 on the road in Tbilisi and 3-1 at home in Valladolid. A lot of the leg work was already stashed on the hard drive.
The lack of sleep hasn’t affected de la Fuente’s mood much, and he has every reason to be happy.
Given how well Spain is playing is highlighted by the fact it has one of the best young players in the tournament in Nico Williams and, unfathomably, a rising star in Lamine Yamal who is a full five years younger than his 21-year-old buddy.
There isn’t a lot to be scared about. Not because it’s Georgia on the other side, but because in its current mood, Spain looks more than a match for anyone.
“What we have done so far deserves a huge amount of credit,” De la Fuente told reporters. “Why put the brakes on the enthusiasm, the hope?
“Hope is free, and we’re the first to feel that hope, that optimism. But we do so with our feet on the ground. It doesn’t guarantee anything.”
Confronted with the so-called Group of Death, Spain laughed in the face of it. It won Group B against Italy, Croatia and Albania with a game to spare, meaning that it knew the location and exact timing of its Round of 16 clash last Wednesday, but had to wait until this Wednesday to see who the opponent would be.
Hence all the long nights. De la Fuente is a meticulous plotter, and you can be sure by the time of kickoff he’ll have reacquainted himself with offensive threats posed by Georges Mikautadze and Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, plus a whole lot more.
“If we’ve only slept two, three hours a night so far, we’re going to have to go a few with almost no sleep at all because we’ll have to study more,” he added.
Mikautadze is the tournament’s top scorer, while goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili was simply brilliant against Portugal. But Spain is Spain, with an absurd level of talent coursing through the squad and confidence growing, both within the group and from an increasingly expectant nation back home.
Never before has Spain advanced from a major tournament group having won all its games without conceding a goal. De la Fuente could have tried to dampen the hype, but why bother?
“We have a group of players who are incredibly talented and incredibly ambitious and, if we keep working with humility, we have the chance to experience something very important, something historic,” he said.
“This doesn’t mean we will win, but I think we’re the best and I feel obliged to tell my players that.”
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