The Spain national football team (Spanish: Selección de fútbol de España) represents Spain in international association football and is controlled by the Royal Spanish Football Federation, the governing body for football in Spain. The current head coach is Vicente del Bosque. The Spanish side is commonly referred to as La Roja ("The Red"), La Furia Roja ("The Red Fury") or La Furia Española (The Spanish Fury). Spain became a member of FIFA in 1904 even though the Spanish Football Federation was first established in 1909. Spain's national team debuted in 1920. Since then the Spanish national team have participated in a total of thirteen of nineteen FIFA World Cup and nine of fourteen European Championships.
Spain are the reigning World and European champions, having won the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012. The national team are currently ranked number 1 in both the FIFA World Ranking and the World Football Elo Ratings. The Spanish national football team's triumph in Euro 2008, in addition to the aforementioned cup victories, makes them the only national team in history to win three major tournaments consecutively. These achievements have led many commentators, experts and former players to consider the current Spanish side the best ever in world football.
Between November 2006 and June 2009 Spain went undefeated for a record-equaling 35 consecutive matches before their loss to the United States, a record shared with Brazil, including a record 15-game winning streak and thus earning third place in the Confederations Cup. In the 2010 FIFA World Cup Spain became the first European team to lift the World Cup trophy outside of Europe and along with Argentina and Brazil are the only national teams to have won the FIFA World Cup outside of their continents.
Read more about Spain National Football Team: Style of Play, Colours, Honours, FIFA World Ranking History, Home Stadium, Spain's Historical Kits, Managers, Songs For Competitions
Famous quotes containing the words football team, spain, national, football and/or team:
“...I’m not money hungry.... People who are rich want to be richer, but what’s the difference? You can’t take it with you. The toys get different, that’s all. The rich guys buy a football team, the poor guys buy a football. It’s all relative.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)
“How the devil am I to prove to my counsel that I don’t know my murderous impulses through C.G. Jung, jealousy through Marcel Proust, Spain through Hemingway ... It’s true, you need never have read these authorities, you can absorb them through your friends, who also live all their experiences second-hand. What an age!”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)
“But the creative person is subject to a different, higher law than mere national law. Whoever has to create a work, whoever has to bring about a discovery or deed which will further the cause of all of humanity, no longer has his home in his native land but rather in his work.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“Idon’t enjoy getting knocked about on a football field for other people’s amusement. I enjoy it if I’m being paid a lot for it.”
—David Storey (b. 1933)
“I also heard the whooping of the ice in the pond, my great bed-fellow in that part of Concord, as if it were restless in its bed and would fain turn over, were troubled with flatulency and bad dreams; or I was waked by the cracking of the ground by the frost, as if some one had driven a team against my door, and in the morning would find a crack in the earth a quarter of a mile long and a third of an inch wide.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)