It's been five days since the Champions League final.

The time has come to June, and the time for the opening of the 2018 World Cup in Russia is getting closer and closer.

The 32 national teams participating in the competition are all preparing intensively at this time.

Because they had just participated in the Champions League final, Lin Quan and David Silva went to the national team to report a lot later than others.

Bosque took care of Lin Quan and the others just finished a big game, and their physical strength has not fully recovered, so they are allowed to rest for three days and then come to the team to report.

But three days is not enough time to erase the fatigue of the past whole season.

After all, there is no winter break in the evil Premier League!

'David's injury is more problematic and he may need to rest for three or four weeks, and he may not be able to catch up in the group stage.

David Silva suffered an unexpected injury in the Champions League final, which left him absent from the team's pre-match training camp.

"Do you want to recruit someone again?"

The other coaches on the coaching staff asked Bosque for advice, and now that the World Cup has not started, there is still time to make personnel adjustments, and when the World Cup starts, there will be no more substitutions.

"Forget it, take him with you, this position is not easy to change!"

Bosque shook his head, David Silva is the only one who can rotate with him in this position, and the strength of the others is a notch below these two, and there is no way to replace them.

What's more, Xiaobai is 34 years old, and his physical fitness and state are no longer enough to support him to play the whole game.

So, the importance of David Silva is highlighted.

Moreover, he and Lin Quan, the core of the team, have cooperated with each other in a club for a long time, and the tacit understanding between the two is the highest in the entire national team.

Sending him on the field makes it easier to spark with Lin Quan, which is of great help to the team's offense, and can even save the team at critical moments.

So even if he may not be able to play in the group stage, Bosque will have to take him with him.

As long as he recovers from injury, he can come in handy in the knockout stages.

"Okay, in that case, then we won't hand over the final list without adjustment?"

The list of national teams must be uploaded to the Spanish Football Federation first, and then the Spanish Football Federation will upload it to FIFA for confirmation.

"Hmm!"

Bosque nodded absentmindedly, his attention now focused on the training ground.

The team on the training ground made him feel a little unfamiliar, although these players were all carefully selected by him one by one.

However, with the loss of many familiar faces, Bosque always felt as if he had lost a little confidence in his heart.

It was only when he saw Lin Quan's familiar figure that he breathed a sigh of relief.

This national team, in terms of overall lineup, is not as good as the previous two World Cups.

But fans in Spain and around the world have high expectations for them because of the status of the Spanish team's defending champions.

Many people regard the Spanish team as the biggest favorite to win the championship, but in the eyes of people familiar with Spain such as Bosque, it is very difficult to win the championship with such a team.

Bosque is 68 years old this year, and after this World Cup, he will definitely retire.

He was 70 years old at the next European Championship and 72 at the World Cup in Qatar.

At this age, he really can't take it, even if the work of the national team is a little easier than that of the club, he can't hold on.

Besides, even if he failed to lead the team to defend the title this time, he won two World Cup titles.

There are so many famous coaches in world football, how many people can lead the team to win two Hercules Cups?

To be a man is to be content, and he is already satisfied with so many honors and achievements.

Then let's put the burden on the youngsters, and Manchester City's Pep Guardiola is one of his favourites.

Of course, Enrique, who stepped down from Barcelona last year, is also one of the alternatives.

The reason why these two people were chosen is also very simple.

Because they have all taken Barcelona and know Barcelona's set of tactical play.

The main team of the Spanish national team is the Barcelona gang, if the head coach of the national team is not familiar with Barcelona's technical and tactical play, he will not be able to lead the national team.

Of course, this situation may change in the future, after all, Barcelona are not as strong in La Liga as they used to be.

When the players of the golden generation of La Masia's academy retire one after another, Barcelona's number and influence in the national team will slowly decline, and the choice of national team managers will be much greater.

……

After Lin Quanlai reported to the team, Bosque immediately arranged for a confrontation between the main players and the substitute players.

In the team training stage, the so-called main players are not the final starting list, and the head coach will finally select the team's 11-man starting list based on the performance and condition of the players in the team training matches, as well as the attitude of training on weekdays.

Of course, there are a few positions that are not easily changed.

For example, Lin Quan in the front, Andres Iniesta in the midfield, defender Ramos and goalkeeper David De Gea.

As long as these four don't suffer major injuries, their starting position is still very stable.

After a few in-team trainings, Spain played a friendly match with Switzerland to test the results of the team's training.

Switzerland are also participating in this World Cup, and they have been drawn in Group E, which includes Serbia, Brazil and Costa Rica.

The strength of these teams is not weak, especially Brazil, they are also one of the favorites to win this World Cup, although not as popular as four years ago, but the Samba Army has always been a strong team, and no one will dare to underestimate them.

Considering the strong attacking strength of the Brazilian team, the Swiss team is eager to find a strong team with the same or stronger strength as the Brazilian team to test their defensive ability.

The Swiss team is not strong in attack, but it is outstanding defensively.

During the World Cup in South Africa, the Spanish team suffered at their feet.

In this game, the Swiss obviously played more seriously than the Spaniard.

After all, with Spain's strength, it is not difficult to qualify in the group stage.

However, the situation for the Swiss team is not so good, and Brazil are mostly winless, so their main target is the other two opponents in the group, Serbia and Costa Rica.

These two teams are not weak, and Switzerland's offensive ability is not strong, so they can only do their good defensive work first, based on defense, catch the opponent's mistakes, and then wait for an opportunity to steal one.

Half an hour into the first half, the score was still 0:0.

Even though it's just a friendly match, it doesn't matter if you win or lose.

But seeing that the team's offense was playing so fluidly, Bosque on the sidelines still couldn't sit still.

In a friendly match with no limit on the number of substitutions, it is difficult for the Spanish team to rely on passing to consume the opponent's physical strength, and then seize the opportunity of the opponent's increased mistakes after the opponent's physical fitness decreases to play counterattack.

Therefore, in this game, the Spanish team mainly practiced the offensive routine of positional warfare.

However, in order to be effective, positional warfare requires a high level of tacit understanding between players.

On weekdays, everyone plays for different teams, and each team has a different style.

The players also have different habits, so they need to observe and adapt to their teammates' habits while playing, adjust as they play, and finally have everyone on the same channel so that they can play the ideal fit.

There's nothing difficult about this kind of thing, there's no trick to it, it's just time.

But for a team like the national team that has been temporarily assembled and has a relatively short training period, time happens to be what they lack the most.

So there's nothing to complain about with such a miserable effect, and instead of wasting time complaining, it's better to think about how to improve it.

Bosque looked at it for a while and made a decisive substitution.

He replaced Andres Iniesta with Atletico Madrid's central midfielder Saul.

Saul is well-rounded and can play in multiple positions in midfield.

At the age of 23, he has a lot of energy and a lot of running ability, and he covers a wide area.

On top of that, he has the same speed and explosiveness, and can be used as a winger when necessary.

In this national team, Saul is a young player that Bosque is very optimistic about, and if he can continue to maintain his current form, he will definitely become a regular in the team at the next World Cup.

Of course, in Bosque's positioning, Saul is mainly used by Lin Quan.

The purpose of letting him replace Iniesta is to help the Spanish team pull out space in the middle, so that Lin Quan can better complete the work of organization and attack.

As for the other midfielder, Isco, his task is simple.

He's just going to pass the ball, using his wide vision and creativity to do whatever it takes to get the ball to the feet of the strikers and feed the pie to his team-mates.

After a bit of combing through the team's midfield, the quality of Spain's attack immediately improved.

In the 38th minute, Lin Quan assisted Diego Costa to score a goal.

Bosque smiled with relief when he saw the goal.

It seems that this set of combinations works well, you can write it down in a small notebook, and when you get to the World Cup in a few days, you may be able to take it out and use it.

After the Swiss team conceded the goal, the study played unhurriedly and did not blindly launch a counterattack.

There is still a big gap between the two teams, and if they dare to attack, the empty defense will be beaten into a sieve by Spain's powerful firepower.

Since it doesn't matter if you win or lose, just continue to play the role of defender.

The Swiss didn't expect to win or draw against Spain, but sometimes that's how weird things are.

In the 62nd minute of the second half, the Swiss team took advantage of the mistake of the Spanish team to launch a counterattack, and the result was a counterattack and the goal was scored.

It was the only time the Swiss had a shot on target in the game, but the goal was scored with a shot on target, which was ridiculously efficient.

De Gea looked unlucky, this ball is not that he does not work hard, but that the opponent plays too tricky.

The remainder of the game was goalless for both sides and Spain's first warm-up game ended in a draw.

Compared with the tepid 1:1 on the Spanish side, at the Stade de France, the French defeated Italy 3:1, and the young French generation such as Mbappe, Griezmann, and Dembele scored goals one after another, showing the strong strength of the French Youth Janissaries!

Although it was only a warm-up match, because the opponent was the old powerhouse Italy.

This made the gold content of this game very high, and after the game, all parties vied to praise the French team, and many celebrities believed that the French team had the appearance of the champion.

It's no wonder they're blowing it like this, let's see who is in the French team!

Dembele, Antoine Griezmann, Mbappe, Pogba, N'Golo Kante......

Which one hasn't been a big name in football in recent years?

Of these players, except for N'Golo Kante, the remaining four are all worth more than 100 million euros.

Combined, their combined value has already surpassed the vast majority of participating teams in this World Cup.

And Kante, who is the least valuable, is recognized as the world's best in international football!

This French team must be worth a lot, be strong and powerful, and the most important thing is that it is young, it is too young!

Even if they fail to win this World Cup, they are still the favorites to win the next World Cup.

The French team, which is full of talents, will sooner or later stand on the championship podium and lift the Hercules Cup.

……

Bosque ignored the criticism of the outside world and continued to carry out his preparations step by step.

On June 10, with less than four days to go before the opening match of the World Cup, Spain played their final warm-up match against Tunisia.

Because this is the last game before the World Cup, many eager Spanish fans rushed to the scene to see the results of the team's preparation during this time.

However, to their disappointment, the Spanish team played an even more ugly game than the previous one.

The Spanish team's attack can only be described as simple, rough and clumsy.

You can see that the players are working hard, but the cooperation is simply unimpressive.

Bosque made six or seven substitutions in a row, as if he was doing permutations and combinations, and tried various combinations one by one.

The final effect was not very ideal, and in the end, Shui Ye couldn't stand it, and when the game was near the end, he rushed into the penalty area and scored a header to help the team win the game.

Although the final result was that the Spanish team won, the fans who watched the whole game had expressions on their faces as if they were the losing side.

It's no wonder that they had high expectations for the team before the game started, but when they actually watched, they were all disappointed.

The current Spanish fans are starting to panic a little.

The team is in this state, how can it play in the World Cup!

They were all a little worried that the team would be eliminated in the group stage!

Fortunately, Spain's luck is actually not bad, and the remaining three opponents in Group B they are in are not strong.

In addition to Portugal, the two remaining opponents, one from Asia and one from Africa, are Iran and Morocco.

These two teams are not strong, and their record in the World Cup is not good.

Although Iran has participated in five World Cups, they have never made it out of the group.

Morocco have also reached the round of 16 only once, failing to qualify from the group on all five other occasions.

Encountering such an opponent, even if Spain's form is not good, it is still very stable to reach the round of 16.

But Spanish fans are not aiming for the round of 16, they are looking forward to the Hercules Cup.

But the state that the team is showing now has no hope of winning the championship at all.

This is the root cause of the fans' disappointment.

No wonder no team has ever won the World Cup three times in a row before, and it turns out that it is so difficult to achieve this achievement!

(End of chapter)