PREVIEW | Round 1 on the Rhine
In its aim to make the national team a close-knit squad with a strong feeling between fans and players, Spain has become one of the favourites at the European Championships, not only down to its play but also due to their repeated displays of affection with the supporters.
A sentimental bridge that at this stage of the tournament has also become a geographical one, with the fever of the competition spreading from the source of the Danube, where the Spain squad have their base camp, to the banks of the Rhine, the scene of the next two matches.
The first of them comes this Monday at 21:00 (Spanish peninsular time, with live coverage on la1 and exhaustive coverage on this official media) with Spain already qualified as group winners for the Last 16 and facing an Albania side playing the most important match in their footballing history.
Click here to listen to what coach Luis de la Fuente and player Jesús Navas had to say before the match.
The regional capital, Düsseldorf, hosts the duel in a setting famed for the liked of Wagner and with a clear leitmotif in the case of a Spanish national team in which all its members will be competing in this match as if it were the last of their lives.
That's what the coach announced in the run-up to the game and that's how the 26-man squad are taking it, with defender Nacho still getting over some physical discomfort, and with possible changes to the starting eleven in terms of names but not in terms of attitude.
Consult Spain's Information pack for Euro 2024
Because to keep on winning and improving is what guides the Spanish internationals in every game the play, and the clash against Sylvinho's Albanian hopefuls will be no exception, even if the Last 16 is already looming large at the end of this week in another great Rhenish venue, the city of Cologne.
Albania up first for Spain in the first round of matches on the Rhine, the match will be far from easy against possibly the fastest-growing team in Europe in recent years, in which not a single player plays in the local league, ten of them in the Italian Serie A, and right-back Iván Balliu, born in the province of Gerona and a Rayo Vallecano player, is the Spanish football ambassador in a Balkan team used to scoring in the first few minutes of play during this European Championships.
Swedish referee Glenn Nyberg will officiate, with Germany's Christian Dingert acting as video assistant referee.
Sylvinho's side's flying start, their set-piece strength and the fact that a win would represent unprecedented success present three new challenges for a Spain team focused on the present at the tournament.
Like Wagnerian heroes, Spain's internationals live for the present, even if we hope their exploits resonate eternally. This week, from Düsseldorf to Cologne and always on the banks of the Rhine, where the German composer and his mythology located the gold guarded by the nymphs, Spain is playing for its continental future on the road to Valhalla in Berlin and hoping to strike some gold of their own.
