Wednesday, June 18, 2014 10:55 pm
Chile defeats defending Champion Spain, 2-0
Aragones inspiration
+ Coached by the late unorthodox Luis Aragones Spain announced themselves as the new force in world football by going unbeaten through the 2008 European Championships and ended a 44-year wait for a major trophy.
Record Wins
+ Went on a record 35 match unbeaten run — including a record 15 successive wins — from 2006 to 2009 ended by the United States in the Confederation Cup in South Africa.
Lost and Won
+ With Vicente del Bosque in charge, Spain returned to South Africa in 2010 and despite an opening 1-0 defeat to Switzerland went on to become the only team apart from Brazil to win the World Cup outside their home continent.
Defend Euro title
+ In 2012 Spain became the first side to successfully defend the European Championship title with a 4-0 hammering of Italy in the final.
Spain-Barcelona domination
+ Spain’s emergence as the footballing superpower was in parallel with the dominance of Barcelona on the European stage using the tiki-taka passing game. Aragones and del Bosque, a former coach of Real Madrid, based their teams round Barcelona playmaker Xavi. As Barcelona have declined so have Spain.
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