PREVIEW | Spain launches into continental summer of football
The national team is approaching the frontier both in football and geographically, barely 48 hours before the final squad list for the European Championships is announced and exactly ten days before our group stage opener.
The challenge comes in the shape of Iberian neighbours Andorra who, due to local rivalry, will provide a test beyond the sum of the team’s individual parts. The Nuevo Vivero stadium, within eyeshot of Spain´s other Iberian rivals Portugal is where this Wednesday at 21:30 (Spanish peninsular time live on La1 and with exhaustive coverage by this official media) Spain will take to the pitch to start their preparations in what will be a stern test.
Click here to listen to Luis de la Fuente and defender Marc Cucurella speaking to the media before the match.
The squad of 23 players, with Rodrigo and Dani Olmo rested and Laporte, Nacho, Carvajal and Joselu absent, are all hoping to travel to Germany and for the passionate Extremadura fans, whose enthusiastic welcome on Tuesday will be followed with the expected full house at the Badajoz stadium.
Luis de la Fuente, who has so far been satisfied with the four days of training in Las Rozas, will have all his five senses tuned to learn anything he can from the match against the team from the Pyrenees.
Check out Spain's shirt numbers for the match
Andorra returns to Spain to play the national team just twenty years after their first meeting, with Koldo Álvarez, goalkeeper in that match, now acting as coach of a team on the rise and eager to make things difficult for Spain.
To earn the status of favourites for the imminent European Championships, Spain need to find their rhythm and get used to the automatisms that will be vital when the pressure is on against the big teams awaiting them at the tournament’s final stages.
Portuguese referee Gustavo Correia will be in charge of the match, assisted on the sidelines by his compatriots Luciano Maia and Pedro Martins.
Attention and focus is therefore at its highest for the match in Badajoz, which will be followed by a second and final warm-up match on Saturday against Northern Ireland on the island of Mallorca.
It was in Badajoz on a day like tomorrow but in 1801 that Spain signed its last peace treaty on home soil with another European nation. 223 years later, the capital of Badajoz marks the location for an imminent and fascinating continental battle of a very different kind, a sporting one.