Spain coach Luis de la Fuente says his aspect is not going to 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 let you know one thing humorous about Messi,” De la Fuente mentioned. “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 towards Barcelona.
“We went to Barcelona. They’d spoken very properly a few 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 targets.”
De la Fuente continued, laughing: “Does that imply we’re going to man mark him? No. Does it imply we pays shut consideration to him? Sure, however in precisely the identical manner that they’re going to 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 must be Lamine. Messi can by no means be repeated. He’s a rare 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. It is going to be a terrific present between two tremendous groups. It is going to be a recreation of expertise, brilliance, nice play.”
De la Fuente dismissed ideas this last was “all or nothing”. “What’s essential is to be within the place to win it,” he mentioned. “Let’s get pleasure from it, play our manner, worth this. If you happen to mentioned we might play a World Cup last yearly and lose, I might join that.”
