Tuesday 28 June 2016 14:28, UK
After Spain's early exit at Euro 2016 at the hands of Italy, Guillem Balague looks at what comes next for the Spanish national team….
The fears that some of us had at the beginning of the tournament have proven to be reality. It is the end of an era, there's no doubt about that, and it is perhaps two years too late.
It's easy to say but it became very clear at the World Cup that things needed to change.
Why doesn't Spain's World Cup-winning style work?
In any walk of life, and in football too, defeat and victory are two sides of the same coin and you have to go through one to get to the other. So after an era of unparalleled success everybody deserved to go to Brazil, but there were already conflicts within the side, which suggested things had to change, but they did not.
The little details weren't looked after. We needed to surprise with new tactical changes, new demands, and we couldn't because that isn't what this regime is about. Vicente Del Bosque is about keeping everybody happy and keeping the style that made us world champions but without evolving it. Del Bosque's way of doing things is what made us win but it is also what made us lose.
Once they had gone out in Brazil, a lot of us were saying it was time to move on. It was decided that Del Bosque deserved another chance and even though a third of the team has changed every two years, it would have taken someone very brave to get rid of the key players, those that had won so much.
Now it is time to look for something else because the squad and the style both need to develop. We are playing with a style that we made our own eight years ago and football has moved on since then. It is now more about pressing and counter-pressing, you can have possession but need more work off the ball. You can see some of that in the styles of some of the teams who have gone far in the tournament.
It is also about surprising with pace, being more aggressive defensively and having - like Italy for instance - tactics depending on the rival. I know that we like to dominate and we can continue to do so, but we need to offer something else, which we couldn't against Italy.
What went wrong against Italy?
The Italians were brilliant for most of the game, they were so clever in each part of the pitch and in each phase of the game, adjusting to the few things that we threw at them, and we couldn't respond to what they proposed. Having three centre backs is something we couldn't beat.
For instance we could have gone 3-4-3 with Sergio Busquets and two centre-backs to try to create overload in the midfield. Instead, there was always more Italians around the ball than Spanish players, and what was proposed at the end with the substitution of Lucas Vazquez came too late.
He was the only one running off the ball, in behind the defence and into space, nobody else was doing that because everybody wanted to go to feet.
The centre-backs were poor for different reasons - Sergio Ramos made mistakes in the way he controlled the ball and in his positioning, and Gerard Pique was struggling too. He obviously didn't feel protected so he dropped deeper, which created huge gaps between the defence and the midfield, with Busquets not having enough to cover.
Who is in the frame to become the new national team manager?
Del Bosque will tell the Spanish FA he is leaving and then they will have to look for somebody else. A few names have been mentioned, one of whom is Joaquin Caparros, but he hasn't got everybody's backing. He represents another version of Spain, not so much the one based on possession but one based on aggression and bite, as he showed at Sevilla and Athletic Bilbao.
Another is Quique Setien of Las Palmas who is more of a representation of the possession football of Spain.
But one who could do a bit of both - and would certainly make the side more intense - is Marcelino of Villarreal, who is also waiting for a call. It is too early to say as there are elections within the federation and whoever wins will decide the new national coach, but there are alternatives.
Spain need to look forward
It has been an amazing era, an extraordinary era and one that none of us dreamed could have happened. Thinking about it still gives me goosebumps, but all that started nine years ago.
We now have to compete with the quality players we have because the new generation is still very good, but we must compete in a slightly different way.
We can still display what made us very good but we must also bring back the hunger. You are hungry when you don't eat, so not winning is certainly a good thing because it is a platform to try to win again.
The other amazing thing that has happened through our era of success is standards have been set so high that everybody knows how far we can go if we get it right. There are no excuses anymore.
We can win and I am convinced we will win again.
