This is another Spain. How is it possible when half of the national team is over 35 years old and has been in the championship for more than a decade? Things of the coach, Jordi Ribera.

This is another Spain because now it wins with other arguments. Before the titles, the podiums, they always had surnames. Of the two World Cups won, the great ideas, almost revolutionary, of the coaches, Juan Carlos Pastor and Valero Rivera, are remembered. The three Olympic bronzes can be remembered through the movements they imagined central as Talant Dujshebaev or Raúl Entrerríos. And the only European held, the last one, in 2018, was a tribute of Arpad Sterbik to the tradition of excellent Spanish goalkeepers.

But this is another Spain and, therefore, it has something special: it can win the European again, it can even do it brilliantly, and nobody will know what face the coach had, no one can highlight a single protagonist. The MVP? Stupid

Because this Spain is above all a reliable Spain, it is a Spain that repels the protagonists, it is a Spain in which all players know what they have to do and simply do it. There is the remote option of losing, that some rival surprise and defeat him, but for this you need an almost perfect performance.

Before the Czech Republic this Thursday, this Spain confirmed that neither laziness nor relaxation is allowed. The team did not play exceptionally, it did not have its best day in pitch, no one stood out above the rest or even the defense was especially intense. But the advantage grew at all times and the victory was always assured. In the first match of the second phase, the team closed a victory that puts it even closer to the fight for the medals. Now if he defeats weak Austria on Saturday and also modest Belarus on Monday, on Wednesday he will reach the crucial duel against Croatia with the qualification for semifinals closed mathematically.

Jordi Ribera asked for a time-out in the 22nd minute because he didn't like certain mistakes. Then one of the scorers, Jorge Maqueda, already had when failed pitches - he finished with six - and his substitute, Alex Dujshebaev, did not improve his success rate, but the problem was not that. The coach's concern was lack of control. Before a rival based on his defense, full of specialists of modest teams of the Bundesliga, Spain raised a match to the race, practically without defense-attack transitions, sacrificing one of its defenders to run. But at certain times that claim went out of mother. Although in the middle of the first part, the selection was already winning with ease - Ribera asked for the dead time with 12-8 -, the oscillations in the markers were too habitual and thus a second part of straits was raised, even of problems.

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