Spanish national team in transition

Vicente del Bosque’s Spain team is currently in transition

Much was made of Spain’s collapse in Brazil at the World Cup.

Their opening game hammering by Holland was an eye-opener for most.

The second game defeat by Chile just underlined that changes had to be made to the stale Spanish national team.

They arrived in Brazil as champions and they went home as a broken team.

A number of that Spanish squad retired from international football after the World Cup debacle, including veteran midfielders Xavi and Xabi Alonso and also record goalscorer David Villa.

Fresh

Spain boss Vicente del Bosque has had to freshen up his squad after the retirements and loss of form of some of his more experienced players. A number of younger players have been given their chance since the World Cup.

The likes of Juan Bernat, Paco Alcacer, Koke, Rodrigo Moreno and Dani Carvajal are all now part of the Spanish squad. These youngsters are likely to play a big part in Spain’s transition. Not only have youngsters been introduced to the squad, more experienced players have been given their chance as well.

Midfielders Ander Iturraspe, Raul Garcia and Espanyol Kiko Casilla were also part of Spain’s most recent squad for their European Championship qualifiers.

Qualifiers

Spain has made a mixed start to their Euro 2016 qualification campaign. La Roja have won two and lose one of their qualification games so far in the group. The one defeat came with a 2-1 defeat in Slovakia, where veteran keeper Iker Casillas was criticised, more on the Real Madrid legend later on.

The Spanish were expected to top their qualification section with ease, despite the apparent turnaround of players within the squad. They are still likely to top the group and are odds of 1/8 to win Group C. However, the Slovakia defeat shows that there are few kinks for Spanish boss Vicente del Bosque to iron out.

Keeper

One of those kinks is the current goalkeeping situation. Casillas has been Spain’s first choice keeper for a long-time, but since his woeful display against Holland in the World Cup opener there have been question marks over his position as Spanish number one.

More questions were asked about Casillas for Slovakia’s opening goal in the recent defeat and Casillas was replaced by Manchester United keeper David de Gea for the 4-0 victory over Luxembourg in their last outing.

De Gea has appeared to be the heir apparent to Casillas crown for a quite some time. The 23-year-old seems to have been around for a long time. He struggled to adapt to life at United at first and has made some mistakes this season.

However he also looks to be maturing into the top keeper that a lot of people believed he could. The former-Atletico Madrid star has always had potential and some of the top saves he has pulled off this season prove he is one of the top shot stoppers in the Premier League, with his recent performance against Everton particularly eye-catching.

Casillas is likely to still be around the Spanish squad for some time to come, but he now has a fight on his hands to keep his number one jersey for the national side.

Style

It seems that with the likes of Alonso and Xavi now gone from the centre of the Spanish midfield, the team is now searching for a new identity and style of play. The successful Tiki-Taka style seems now to be outdated.

Even Barcelona, who were one of the biggest advocates of Tiki-Taka have seemingly moved on to another style under former-star Luis Enrique, which is slightly more direct and has proved effective in La Liga so far this season.

The Spanish team are likely to be looking for a slightly different style of play, although it is still likely to be based on possession and passing football.

However, with Chelsea’s Diego Costa leading the attack La Roja may need to take a more direct approach to get the best out of their star striker. The Brazilian-born forward scored his first international goal against Luxembourg last time out.

In a more direct style of play the effectiveness of the skilful Andres Iniesta is diluted though, which is a conundrum for Del Bosque.

Recovery

Spain is unlikely to be in the international wilderness while their national team is in transition, as they seem to have a steady stream of talented players in the junior teams. Just like the senior teams the Spanish junior teams have been very successful in recent years.

It is unlikely that Spain is ever going to see another generation of players that clinched two European Championships and a World Cup, but with talent in the junior ranks they will soon be challenging for the big competitions once again.

Will Spain now change their style of play?