'You can show humanitythat is not a weakness'

Triumphant with Spain at youth level and Euro 2024, Luis dela Fuente has a special insight into the mindset ofa modern player and what it takes to forge a winning team

- Sid Lowe

Luis de la Fuente is sitting in a small white office on the second floor of a quiet corner of the Spanish Football Federation's Las Rozas HQ, running through the qualities sought in superstar managers these days. "Obnoxious, rude, disrespectful, arrogant... it seems like the only way they take you into consideration is this thing they call 'charisma'," he says. "I don't know what that is but if you're those things they say: 'He's got charisma!' Well, then, I don't want charisma.

We've shown that being normal can work, too. You don't have to be winding people up all day." His story is a little different, the tale of a man who was 61 when he took over the Spain team, not so much low profile as almost no profile. A former full-back at Athletic Bilbao and Sevilla, described as quiet, discreet, initially he was a little awkward in public - in conversation, by contrast, he is warm company, charismatic in fact - and he didn't have elite experience. His only senior coaching job had been 11 third-tier games a decade earlier.

What he did have was good players, and he knew that better than anyone. He joined the federation in 2013, integrated into a structure put in place in the late 90s by Iñaki Sáez, and a culture that brought success. "It is a process going back many years, based around an idea, controlled. I've been here [nearly] 12 years, Santi [Denia, the under-21 coach who just won the Olympics] a little longer."

The youth coordinators Tito Blanco and Francis Hernández sit working in the office next door.

De la Fuente led Spain to the European title at under-19 and under-21 level, as well as an Olympic silver medal. Like Gareth Southgate and Lionel Scaloni, De la Fuente was promoted from within, a model that works. So were some of his players: five of the European Championship-winning squad this summer won the European under-21s in 2019.