From Spain's surprise pick to football's summit: How de la Fuente remade Spain
When Luis de la Fuente was appointed Spain's head coach on December 8, 2022, four days after Luis Enrique stepped down following the World Cup Round-of-16 penalty shootout defeat to Morocco, the decision puzzled many.
Here was a coach known almost exclusively for youth and under-23 football, taking charge of a national team many believed would need years simply to become competitive again, with the golden generation of 2008-12 fading into memory.
Three-and-a-half years later, those doubts have been emphatically silenced.
On Sunday, De la Fuente's Spain defeated Argentina 1-0 after extra time at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey to lift the World Cup, completing a remarkable clean sweep of the Nations League, the UEFA European Championship and football's biggest prize in the space of four years.
Substitute Ferran Torres settled the final with a 106th-minute volley, moments after Argentina had been reduced to 10 men following Enzo Fernández's second yellow card.
The triumph also made De la Fuente, at 65 years and 28 days, the oldest manager to win a World Cup, surpassing the record previously held by compatriot Vicente del Bosque, who was 59 when he guided Spain to their first title in 2010.
Yet De la Fuente's success was never an overnight story. He took bold decisions to reshape Spain's identity, moving beyond the patient tiki-taka possession game that had defined the country's greatest era. His side pressed higher and more aggressively, played with greater verticality, attacked with far more purpose and regularly used centre-forwards while delivering significantly more crosses into the penalty area.
Those ideas had been years in the making. Long before taking charge of the senior side, De la Fuente guided Spain's under-19 team to the 2015 European Championship title in Greece before leading the under-21s to the 2019 European crown in Italy, defeating Germany 2-1 in the final in Udine.
A silver medal followed at the delayed Tokyo Olympics, where Spain lost 2-1 to Brazil in the final.
That youth pedigree would become the foundation of his senior success. Several of his most trusted soldiers -- Mikel Merino, Dani Olmo, Mikel Oyarzabal, Fabian Ruiz and Unai Simon among them -- had already flourished under him at under-21 level before forming the backbone of Spain's European Championship and World Cup-winning side.
His first major examination arrived in the 2023 Nations League, where Spain defeated Croatia 5-4 on penalties after a goalless final to secure their first major trophy since Euro 2012.
Euro 2024 followed, and Spain won all seven matches, overcoming European heavyweights Germany and France before defeating England in the final in Berlin.
By the time the World Cup arrived, Spain were riding an unbeaten run stretching to 38 matches.
They brought the sixth-youngest squad among the tournament's 48 teams, with an average age of just 26, yet conceded only once throughout the campaign -- against Belgium in the quarterfinals -- setting a record for the fewest goals conceded by a World Cup-winning side.
Another tactical masterclass followed in the semifinals as Spain shut out France 2-0, while captain Rodri, having returned from a lengthy injury lay-off, was named the tournament's outstanding player.
Perhaps nothing illustrated the depth and balance of this Spain side better than Lamine Yamal's tournament. One of the game's brightest young stars and one of the faces of Spanish football, he scored just once throughout the World Cup, yet Spain never needed him to carry the burden alone.
For a coach once dismissed as too conservative and uninspiring an appointment, De la Fuente has quietly built Spain's most decorated side of the modern era. One trophy at a time, with a generation he helped nurture long before the rest of the football world truly knew their names, he has transformed initial scepticism into one of the greatest coaching success stories in Spanish football history.
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