Spain's march to the Euro U-21 final has been powered by trust teams like Real Madrid have shown in their young stars

Andy West 11:51 29/06/2017
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  • Although yet another penalty shoot-out defeat for England against Germany provided the drama, Spain’s march into the final of the European Under-21 Championship has been the competition’s greatest source of quality.

    The young players of Albert Celades have been imperious in their progress, winning all four of their games to date and scoring 12 goals while conceding just two.

    And as they prepare for tomorrow’s final against Germany in Krakow, nobody should be at all surprised to see La Rojita challenging for silverware once again.

    Celades has a deeply talented squad at his disposal, with the outcomes in their four games so far in this competition showing just how many matchwinners they possess.

    Six different players have got themselves on the scoresheet, with hat-tricks heroes Saul Niguez (Atletico Madrid) and Marco Asensio (Real Madrid) joined by Inaki Williams (Athletic Bilbao), Denis Suarez (Barcelona), Gerard Deulofeu (Everton) and Sandro (Malaga, soon-to-be-Everton).

    Tellingly, all those players are already familiar faces to the average follower of European football.

    Asensio, for example, scored a brilliant solo effort against Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-final a few weeks ago and then netted again in the final against Juventus.

    Saul, despite still only being 22, has already made 136 appearances for an Atletico team which has been among the strongest sides in Europe throughout his career.

    Deulofeu has amassed nearly 150 senior appearances in the Premier League, Serie A and La Liga, Sandro scored 16 top flight goals for Malaga last season, Williams has been an undisputed starter for a strong Bilbao team for the last 30 months, while Suarez has already represen-ted three teams – Sevilla, Villarreal and Barcelona – in La Liga.

    And those players are by no means the only ones within Celades’s squad who boast such strong credentials.

    Many Real Betis fans, for instance, firmly believe that the main reason for Gus Poyet’s failure during his short spell in charge at the club was his refusal to build the team around the midfield talents of Dani Ceballos, who was lauded for his superb display in Tuesday’s semi-final win against Italy.

    Spain’s midfielder Dani Ceballos

    And in defence, Jonny Castro was one of the outstanding performers as Celta Vigo marched to the Europa League final last season, while fellow full-back Hector Bellerin has surpassed 100 outings for Arsenal and been repeatedly linked with a big-money move back to Barcelona this summer.

    In short, wherever you look in the Spain squad you will find two things: genuine world-class quality, and deep top-level experience.

    This tells us a lot. Firstly, it tells us that Spanish football is continuing to develop fabulous talent. The group of players who were undisputed World and European champions between 2008 and 2012 might have gone, but the emergence of Xavi-Busquets-Iniesta-Villa-Torres-Alonso et al was not just a lucky one-off.

    Youth training programmes throughout the country – and it’s notable that the current squad hail from several different parts of Spain – are continuing to deliver the goods, and La Roja can expect to remain among the leading contenders at any major competition for many years to come.

    It is also, surely, extremely significant that so many of Spain’s current U-21 squad are already household names, having been regularly trusted by managers at top-class clubs – elite clubs, in some cases – from a very young age.

    Saul made his league debut with Atletico at the age of just 18 and has been a more or less automatic starter ever since (including a season on loan at Rayo Vallecano).

    Asensio was signed by Madrid from Mallorca at the age of 19, then played 37 games in a season-long loan spell at Espanyol and returned to his parent club to make 38
    appearances for a team which won the league and European double.

    The phrase ‘if they’re good enough, they’re old enough’ means something to Spanish coaches.

    This doesn’t happen everywhere, but it should because it allows Spain’s best youngsters to keep on getting better by testing themselves in the demanding environment of top-level first team football.

    Producing good players and then making them better by playing them…it all sounds so simple, doesn’t it?

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