In that showpiece event in Berlin, goals from Athletic Club’s Nico Williams and Real Sociedad’s Mikel Oyarzabal saw La Roja clinch the trophy, making this very much a ‘Made in Spain’ triumph.
Of the 26 players in De la Fuente’s squad, 19 of them played their club football last season in LALIGA EA SPORTS. Competing in such a strong domestic competition week in week out meant the likes of Williams and Oyarzabal were more than prepared to take on the world’s best at the tournament in Germany.
Interestingly, the 19 Spain-based players hailed from eight different clubs, namely Athletic Club, Atlético de Madrid, FC Barcelona, Real Betis, Real Madrid, Real Sociedad, Sevilla FC and Villarreal CF. Furthermore, players from CA Osasuna, RC Celta, Girona FC, Granada CF and Valencia CF all played for Spain during the qualifiers, before De la Fuente had to make his final selection of 26.
The above clubs all made direct contributions to this victory by sending players off to the national team camps, but many other Spanish clubs played a role as well. Even the group of footballers currently plying their trade outside the Iberian Peninsula were developed in Spain.
Dani Olmo, one of the stars of the tournament, came through the academies of Catalan clubs RCD Espanyol and FC Barcelona, before leaving to become a professional at Dinamo Zagreb. In the case of Rodri, arguably the best player in the world at his position, he emerged at Villarreal CF before training under Diego Simeone at Atlético de Madrid during the 2018/19 season. Then there’s La Masia graduate Marc Cucurella, who showed determination and grit at left-back throughout the tournament, putting all the lessons he learned during spells with SD Eibar and Getafe CF into practice.
This hasn’t come about by accident. Rather, the clubs of LALIGA have long understood the importance of investing in their academies and in providing the optimal infrastructure for young footballers to achieve success. Whether those footballers stay at the club for many years or move on, each LALIGA club knows that such investment pays off, for them and for Spanish football as a whole.
It’s encouraging for the Spanish national team, then, that LALIGA clubs’ youth development remains as strong as ever, especially following the launch of the BOOST LALIGA initiative. A pair of reports from the CIES Football Observatory during the 2023/24 season showed that Spanish teams really do trust their academy graduates and give them meaningful minutes.
For example, one report demonstrated that FC Barcelona were top for all clubs in Europe’s five major leagues in terms of minutes given to U20 players, as 15 percent of their LALIGA EA SPORTS minutes were going to teenage talents, such as Euro 2024 sensation Lamine Yamal. A parallel report studied use of homegrown players by clubs in the top European leagues, counting players who’d spent at least three seasons at a training club between the ages of 15 and 21. In this study, five of the top six clubs in terms of number of academy alumni in their current squads were LALIGA EA SPORTS clubs.
This trust and development of youth has already paid off for the Spanish national team at Euro 2024. With more talent emerging each and every LALIGA EA SPORTS season, the future looks very bright for La Roja too.