How have top teams changed since the World Cup? A handy digest before qualifying for Euro 2024

Lots of coaching changes.

Qualifying for Euro 2024 starts! We talked about the qualification format here , and here we tell you how the main European teams are doing.

As in the case of the Champions League playoffs , we studied transformations in the “before and after” format. What did you know about the results of the 2022 World Cup? And now what?

In detail – about the 8 best teams in Europe according to the FIFA rating (all are in the world top 10 right behind Brazil and Argentina).

Spain

Spain is being updated. The Federation removed Luis Enrique with positional anti-football after losing to Morocco in a penalty shootout already in the 1/8 finals. Luis de la Fuente, the coach of the youth team, was invited to replace him, who is already 61 years old, but he hardly worked in adult professional football (he didn’t even coach the Segunda teams), and for the last 9 years he has been involved in the Spanish U21 and U23 teams. 

De la Fuente completely reassembled the team – he took only 11 out of 26 players from the 2022 World Cup bid for the first training camp. There is no more Barcelona hegemony (only Gavi and Balde, Pedri has received an invitation but will not come due to injury). Carvajal has survived from Real Madrid, Nacho and Ceballos are going instead of Asensio. The main goalkeeper under Enrique Unai Simon was not called up due to injury: Kepa Arrizabalaga, whom Enrique did not like, was invited instead.

The main opening is the invitation of 32-year-old striker Joselu from Espanyol, who shares the status of the best Spanish scorer in La Liga, along with Aspas and Borja Iglesias (also invited). The 192 cm target has never played for the national team, but for the fourth year in a row he has scored 10+ goals in La Liga. 

Other players who have never played for the national team include Sociedad midfielder Martin Subimendi and Osasuna defender David Garcia.

The player who will never play for the national team again is Sergio Ramos. In February, he announced his international retirement, admitting that the new coach does not count on the 36-year-old defender. Ramos hinted that he was abandoned because of his age: he listed Messi, Modric, Pepe, who they believe in without regard to the numbers in the passport.