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These dates will mark 10 years since Spain achieved its most important victory in a global sporting event: the World Cup in South Africa. With the addition that he was not just another champion; his victory elicited a unanimous recognition of justice and beauty, since he was practicing at that time (since Luis took over in 2004) a game unlike anything that had been known until then, with cadences of rhythm and psychological control never seen before in the high competition by nations.

There were no soloists, but the harmony accompanied the movements of a well-tuned orchestra that rather purred almost all the time like a lazy feline, to unleash its lethal blow unexpectedly and return the game to a previous calm. Like a stone thrown into a still pond.

The observer could understand that he was seeing something new that dismantled the schemes in which the game had been perceived for more than a century. The German coach, Löw, already scalded from the 2008 European Championship final, declared at the end of the semi-final in South Africa that Spain was the strongest team he had ever faced. A coach who was already knocked out in 2008 not for losing, but for the way and manner in which his team had been taken out of the game: without chances, without counterplay, without asserting his physical strength against a swarm of well-placed shorts passing the ball without apparent danger, in long soliloquies at first sight inane but that were patiently and relentlessly undermining the German possibilities until turning their passage through the field into the living image of impotence and irrelevance. And it was a semi-final of a world cup.

Unfortunately for Germany, for Löw, who can be imagined as the meticulous commander of a panzer division, the Spanish team became his black beast and it could be intuited that his greatest personal challenge since 2008 was to be able to beat Spain in a final phase with the same weapons that annihilated him without a word higher than another twice. A fine rain, a gas spigot at small but uninterrupted lethal doses that had devastated Germany, leading her to a sweet death that surely fit inside her as an unprecedented humiliation. But that revenge has not occurred since then; It can simply be attributed to draws and circumstances, but fundamentally it has been because Spain has lowered its performance. It could even be ventured that what would have personally satisfied Löw would have been to beat Spain in Brazil and, then, yes, emerge champion, although the feeling that he had won by subrogating to Spain's methods remained in the air. Well, Spain abdicated itself in Brazil without any objective reason, without any analysis, without any patience or strategy, moved by irrational impulses and disastrous planning at height, the only team that did so, without properly acclimatizing to the hot and humid conditions where the matches will be played.

Also moved in part by the mentality of the press and the emotional levers associated with Real Madrid. Almost every time the team has fallen into the hands of the Madridista environment, promoting its players above their merits, and their environment, the team has fallen into irrelevance.

Without being able to oppose the stage of Del Bosque, truffled with Blaugrana DNA in the winning team that still flirted with disaster too often.

The inclusion of Casillas in the starting team was the trigger for the descent into hell in Brazil, in the company of a nationalized (Brazilian?! ). Costa waited for Del Bosque from injury to him as an absurd, null mana and unable to understand the role of 9 in an elaborate game.

While we condemned ourselves, Germany, wounded in their pride and fascinated by their commander at the same time, having dissected the Spanish game and shot their cadences, won the first World Cup for a European team in South America, scoring seven goals against Brazil in his house, in the greatest humiliation of the five-time champions in their entire history.

A seat that could have been occupied by Spain, inventor of the patent.

Since then, Euro 2016 meant a new disappointment as has already been pointed out elsewhere, with a del Bosque overrun and inane, passed over in the round of 16 against Italy in a directly unworthy first half.

His replacement by Lopetegi gave a slight respite and a certain return to a more canonical concept of the game that was wasted at the worst moment in the World Cup in Russia, with the catastrophic intervention of Real Madrid the same week the competition began (and capricious , since Lopetegi lasted 107 days in the new position) and, to round off, his federal replacement by Hierro, another Real Madrid man at the helm, (more wood!), inexperienced as a coach and null in his contribution, having the dubious honor having sat down Iniesta in the round of 16 against Russia as Del Bosque sat down Xavi against Chile, with well-known results. It can be said that they have had the philosopher's stone at their disposal and have used it at critical moments as a paperweight.

How unfortunate now to remember the image of players and coaches before the penalties in the round of 16 against Russia, speaking without having reserved the change of goalkeeper, without knowing how to do it, improvising, without determination or authority and without the luck that you do not deserve.

After the Russian disaster, Luis Enrique arrived and against all logic we were dropped from the League of Nations due to a coarse back-and-forth game that made us equal to the rest of the teams, although in failure and in a personal style that someone can confuse with personality, was taken for granted.

The coach's sad family situation forced him to step aside, and the team almost by chance found its opportunity to regenerate with Moreno, who had once again made Spain recite his control booklet and good game, but again the donkey to the wheat (this is Spain!) and the federation has replaced Luis Enrique, to date comfortable in his haughty role, from sustaining her and not making amends so bleak, with which, we have already verified, we subscribe to a pose arrogant and go out the back door through no fault of his own.

This short series ends with a link to a piece of writing that is a perfect summary of the situation published in the Argentine newspaper Clarín after the elimination in Russia 2018.

https://www.clarin.com/deportes/world-2018/espana-renuncio-idea_0_HJwrKqDMX.html