The RFEF will announce the renewal of Luis de la Fuente

There were few doubts that Luis de la Fuente will be the one who sits on the bench in the Euro Cup but, with elections in the RFEF in sight, the sports director, Albert Luque, dispelled them. The Riojan will close his renewal as coach until the 2026 World Cup in the coming weeks. “There are small details left and in the coming weeks there will be information. We are in one of the best sporting moments and Luis's work has been magnificent. With that I say it all,” Luque warned from Hamburg in statements to Cadena SER.

This decision, under the interim presidency of Pedro Rocha, will have to be assumed by the winner of the elections to be held by the RFEF, which will have to be called during the month of January.. Luis Rubiales' successor will then have to decide whether to run for re-election or, on the other hand, resign and remain at the head of the management committee that will oversee the process.

The intention is that the coach, whose contract ends on June 30, before the end of the Euro Cup, can work safely for the seven months remaining until the start of the competition, which will be his biggest challenge since he sat on the bench. Spain at the beginning of 2023.

“Apply ourselves from the first moment”

“If it is not the most difficult group, it is one of the most. All the games are going to be complicated, because Albania, for example, was first in the classification ahead of the Czech Republic or Poland. It is a group that will require us to apply ourselves from the first moment to offer the best image,” he warned that, although he is prudent, he does not hesitate either.

“No team would want to have had Italy or Croatia, but neither would Spain. We are confident and we have already seen the growth and potential of our players, who are among the best in the world,” said the coach.

For Luque, the group offers confrontations “of those that footballers like, but in the box we preferred other rivals to start and then meet teams like Italy or Croatia.

Sarri and Dalic

If De la Fuente saw difficulty, so did Zlatko Dalic. For the Croatian it will be a “difficult and uncertain group, because we play with the current champion of Europe and the National League. We will have a very difficult job because we open against Spain in Berlin and in the probably decisive match we will play against Italy.”

Sarri is not confident either: “The draw could have been better, but nothing takes away our awareness of being Italy and having to play every game with pride.”