When Las Rozas Soccer City opens its doors to senior players, many of the best soccer players on the planet appear, trained in their clubs by the best coaches on the planet. Thus appear Rodri (City, Pep Guardiola), Fabián Ruiz (PSG, Luis Enrique), Merino and Zubimendi (Arsenal, Arteta), Huijsen (Real Madrid, Xabi Alonso) and Lamine Yamal and associates (Barcelona, Hansi Flick), among others. The sometimes sophisticated messages of his coaches in the clubs seem to contrast with the simple ones of Luis de la Fuente in La Roja. The coach accepts it. And he even enjoys it: “It would be nice to say that I studied football philosophy at Harvard. I’m more normal and elementary, what I do is get to know the players.”
De la Fuente’s formula helped him win the Nations League in 2023, the Euro Cup in 2024, reach the Nations League final in 2025 and practically seal qualification for the 2026 World Cup after winning the first five matches of the qualifying phase with a record of 19 goals for and zero against. “You have an idea, but the most important thing is to have the players to be able to develop it. At a certain point I said that there were few people who knew Spanish football like us. We know the players who can adapt to this idea and, given that there are so many good ones in Spain, it is our strength,” recalls De la Fuente, who played for La Rojita before replacing Luis Enrique after the World Cup in Qatar.
The success of the simple message, added to the knowledge of the ins and outs of Spanish football, is strengthened by the solid trust that De la Fuente places in his players. Hierarchies are not questioned. There are few better examples than Unai Simón. In Las Rozas his status was not questioned by criticism in the press. “I am particularly happy for Unai, who has been very mistreated for a long time. I hope that some now recognize the value he has. We have three goalkeepers who could all start. His career is spectacular and he is a great teammate”, De la Fuente defended him in the last Nations League.
Nor was it questioned when Joan García emerged at Espanyol, now at a giant like Barça. “Last year he was the best goalkeeper in the league, it’s normal to talk about Joan. But we also achieved important things,” said Unai Simón. And he looked at his teammates, Raya and Remiro: “We have experience here, weight in the locker room. They have always supported me and advised me.”
It therefore seems that Joan García will have to wait to earn a place in the Roja, especially after the Athletic goalkeeper posted an immaculate ranking: he did not concede a goal in the five group stage duels. And he is four games away from Iker Casillas’ record in Spain: nine consecutive games without conceding a goal. “We will try to close this ranking by trying to win, as so far, by keeping a clean sheet; these feelings are important for what comes next”, underlines Mikel Oyarzabal, another of the players pampered by the coach: he is his top scorer, 21 goals in 50 games.
Goal by Oyarzabal and safety by Unai Simón. A confidence that the Basque goalkeeper maintains despite De la Fuente having changed the central defender pairings. The La Roja coach had no one who could match the duo that formed Le Normand and Laporte, one raised at Real, the other at Athletic, one right-handed, the other left-footed, both born in France. However, since the qualifiers for the United States, Mexico and Canada began, the Spanish coach has used four different pairs of central defenders in five matches. It started with Le Normand-Huijsen (Bulgaria and Turkey in September), continued with Cubarsí-Le Normand (Georgia) and Le Normand-Laporte (Bulgaria) in October and this Saturday against Georgia they mixed Pau Cubarsí and Laporte.
De la Fuente does not have a permanent partner at the moment, when the future seems destined for a player from Barcelona and another from Real Madrid, as Sergio Ramos and Gerard Piqué once mixed. “Huijsen is magnificent, like the other central defenders of Spain. The Ramos-Piqué pairing is a big word, but both Huijsen and I have the ambition to grow and improve and we both want to go far,” says Pau Cubarsí.
Huijsen and Cubarsí know it in goal, while on the bench De la Fuente and his message command out of Harvard University, Unai Simón is the starter. He also does it with the learned speech: “The goalkeeper must be reliable, but also a participant in the game.” The Athletic goalkeeper, moreover, is not only defended by De la Fuente, but also by his numbers.
