Spain coach Luis de la Fuente says his facet won’t look to mark Lionel Messi out of the World Cup final.
The Argentina legend has been in glowing type on the grand age of 39 and will win the Golden Boot if he helps his nation to back-to-back World Cups.
Spain received the Euros in 2024 and are additionally trying to make historical past of their very own.
Spain are unbeaten in 37 matches since shedding to Colombia in March 2014 however face arguably the best participant of all time.
“I’m going to inform you one thing humorous about Messi,” De la Fuente stated. “Look, I met Lionel Messi once I was teaching at Sevilla in division de honour [the national under-19 league] and we performed a Copa del Rey recreation in opposition to Barcelona.
“We went to Barcelona. They’d spoken very nicely a couple of boy referred to as Messi. So, we put a man-marker on him. Within the seventieth minute it was 0-0. Once they gave a yellow card to the participant who was marking him, I took him off. And in quarter-hour, Messi scored 4 objectives.”
De la Fuente continued, laughing: “Does that imply we’re going to man mark him? No. Does it imply we can pay shut consideration to him? Sure, however in precisely the identical method that they will have to concentrate to our gamers.”
Spain’s attacking hopes may rest on young Lamine Yamal on Sunday.
Requested whether or not Lamine Yamal was the closest factor that Spain needed to Messi, De la Fuente replied: “Lamine needs to be Lamine. Messi can by no means be repeated. He’s a unprecedented expertise and above all an instance for younger gamers in his angle, his behaviour, the spectacular World Cup he’s producing and the age at which he’s producing it. Will probably be an awesome present between two tremendous groups. Will probably be a recreation of expertise, brilliance, nice play.”
De la Fuente dismissed recommendations this last was “all or nothing”. “What’s vital is to be within the place to win it,” he stated. “Let’s get pleasure from it, play our method, worth this. For those who stated we may play a World Cup last yearly and lose, I might join that.”
