Spain looks for their second star
Written by Ruairidh Barlow
As Spain begin their World Cup campaign on Wednesday at 17:00 CEST against Costa Rica, they will be looking for their second star. On the pitch, and on their shirt. Looking through the Spain squad, there are any number of talented youngsters that might define the next Champions League, the next European Championships or even the next decade of football. Watching Luis Enrique Martínez’s side play, there is plenty of individual quality, a strong sense of a central idea, yet there probably isn’t a player that can fold their arms and look defiantly into the camera, shoulder to shoulder with Kylian Mbappé.
Perhaps the closest they can come is Pedri. The 19-year-old Barcelona midfielder has taken on significant responsibility over the last two seasons when the weight became too much to bear for Sergio Busquets. The veteran next to him has the most Spain caps and the most accolades to his name, but in spite of what his manager says about him, his light has been flickering in recent times.
“We don’t have a superstar, the group is our best star,” says Pedri. “When you all run together and everyone knows what they want and what you’re playing for, I think you have already achieved plenty and have a good chance of winning.”
Put to him that he might be that player, just five days later, he rejected the idea again. "The responsibility of being the star? The whole team has to carry that on their back. I don't feel pressured. I just do what the coach asks me to do."
Others have cast Luis Enrique as the figurehead. Certainly now he has sorted out the lighting for his live broadcasts, his face is illuminated more than that of anyone else. His Twitch streams are constantly in the news – they are the news – meaning that if there was any doubt, this Spain World Cup will wear his stamp, iron-branded.
No doubt there is some truth in the fact that he values the direct communication with the fans – without filters as he put it. Like Gerard Piqué and Kun Agüero, he clearly enjoys the format. However it cannot be escaped that Luis Enrique is also controlling the narrative. Flooding the channels with his own noise, there is little else to be made out over the crackling transmissions from faraway lands other than the messages he wants to send. Perhaps he might not like the comparison, but it is a Mourinnho-esque shouldering of the attention and pressure that might otherwise fall on his players. Perhaps that might be significant, especially considering only five of the squad have played in a World Cup before.
Thumbing through the memories of previous World Cups though, winners of the tournament might share various traits, but all of them had stars. Ronaldo Nazário, Fabio Cannavaro, David Villa, Manuel Neuer, Kylian Mbappé are just some of the most notable contributors from the winners since Luis Enrique was last kicking a ball in the tournament.
Luis Enrique will be aware of this and probably even factored that in to his thought process, relegating Sergio Ramos and Thiago Alcântara to their plush sofas. “We are the Spanish team, not the Luis Enrique team, we are very compact and our strength is the collective," reminds Ferran Torres regardless.
No matter how much their coach uses his own face as that of his team, they will need one of two things to happen; either several of their players demand the burden and the rhapsodies when the hero-maker comes calling, or invert the history of football, and become the most Marxist World Cup winners in history.
Lucho – I fight says his nickname – likes cycling uphill. All evidence suggests that he salivates at the prospect of swimming against the current. It would be entirely fitting for him to pursue a World Cup glory based almost purely on the collective. As Spain pursue their second star though, history suggests they will need to find one or two amongst their ranks to shine brightest.