De la Fuente extends Spain reign to 2032 as insatiable world champions head to Wembley
Three minutes after Spain had won the World Cup, with the celebrations still raging in New Jersey, one of the dressing room's longest-serving players turned to his coach with a question that encapsulates everything about this team: "Mister, now what? What's left to win?"
"I'm going to tell you a story," Luis de la Fuente said at Las Rozas on Friday as he named his first squad since that night of 19 July. "As soon as the game finished on 19 July, before anyone had cooled down at all, just two or three minutes after the final, one of the players – and you'll have to forgive me for not telling you which one, but it was one of those who has been with us for the longest time – came up to me and said: 'Mister, now what? What's left to win?' And I said: 'Bloody hell, the game against England at Wembley on 26 September.'"
Champions of everything, squad almost unchanged
Continuity, unsurprisingly, is the order of the day. Of the 26 players who conquered the world in the United States, only four have been left out – and there is an explanation for each. Marcos Llorente has announced his international retirement; Joan García is injured; Borja Iglesias, who always felt the likeliest to step away first, is not fully fit; and Gavi is suspended for the game at Wembley, although he could have featured against Croatia and Czechia.
Into the group come Fermín López, back after missing the World Cup through injury, alongside the Inter goalkeeper Josep Martínez, Dean Huijsen and Roberto Fernández, while Pedro Porro pulled out and was replaced by Iván Fresneda. "How could there not be continuity with players who are champions of everything?" De la Fuente asked.
The season is too young for anyone else to have staked a serious claim, although three strikers – Sergio Camello, Carlos Espí and Espanyol's Roberto Fernández – were strong candidates for the spare forward's role. Even the one genuinely new face, Martínez, is a familiar one: he officially holds a cap from the summer of 2021, when Spain's under-21 side – managed by De la Fuente – stepped in for the senior team just before the pandemic-postponed Euros.
Asked about Unai Simón's status as No 1, the coach was emphatic. "Unai was recognised as the best goalkeeper at the World Cup, he broke every record, etc. Maybe, just maybe, he has to be given some continuity." That is not to say change will never come: there are, De la Fuente explained, plenty of players "knocking at the door", and it is up to them to walk through it and into the house.
Still world champions – and feted like it
A status report on Spain as they arrive at Wembley could be reduced to four words: yep, still world champions. And European champions too. Oh, and Nations League winners. They will walk out at Wembley with an extra star on their shirt, with the stars already added to badges all around their Las Rozas HQ, where an image of Ferran Torres celebrating the winner at MetLife hangs on the wall by the dressing room. Torres, meanwhile, has thrown the first pitch at Yankee Stadium and appeared on just about every TV show in the US, while back home players have been honoured in their own small towns across the country.
There is a genuine sense of occasion about their first game as world champions, almost as if Wembley is part of the celebrations – but Spain go there to compete as well, and that is the challenge. They are, in a way, being invited to forget the unforgettable, not just at the Euros in two years' time but now.
The Nations League still matters
De la Fuente admitted he does not like the new international break comprising four games in 11 days, but whereas others may not take the Nations League so seriously, he does – and he wants to win it. It was the Nations League, after all, that began this new Spain era: the 2023 title was the first trophy for a generation that had always lived eclipsed by its predecessors. And when Spain reached a second final in June 2025 and lost it on penalties to Portugal, it hurt.
Spain may be world and European champions, reason enough to relax, but they perhaps uniquely still have an objective: if they are to match that generation, they have one more major tournament to win. Besides, De la Fuente says, competing is just what they do. The word he keeps using is "insatiable" – he means his players, but it fits him too.
A contract to 2032 – for services pending
This week the coach's contract was extended to 2032: not reward for services rendered, but services pending, the two things coming together in a conversation in New Jersey. De la Fuente joined the Spain setup 13 years ago on a three-month contract with the under-19s for the Euros, having been unemployed for more than a year. He went on to become a European champion at under-19 and under-21 level, took over the senior side in 2022 and has reached every final since.
"This team won't stop; it wants more and more, to be the best," De la Fuente said. "I will tell them that too. What we did at the World Cup is not enough to keep us winning games or to beat England. You have to be better. That's our culture and our mentality, our attitude, so I have no doubts and no worries. We know Spain are the team to beat, we know that it makes things harder, but it motivates us and we're ready for it. Success is not winning; it is being in a position where you can win. And I would back these players, always. You can follow them to the end of the world."