Spain in need at the European Football Championship: back faster than the postcards?

At a time when Luis Enrique was still playing and fighting for the Spanish national team, there was a marked defeatism in the country.

There was even a bad proverb that said that at major tournaments, Spanish players would often get home sooner than their fans' postcards.

It was all a long time ago.

Enrique is now rubbing off as a coach for Spain, and postcards have also gone a little out of style.

And as far as defeatism was concerned, it was almost extinct after a successful decade with two European and one world championship titles.

Nearly.

In the meantime it is on the advance again and if the Spaniards did not play their preliminary round games without exception in their own country, the story with the postcards would have been booming again long ago.

"Luis Enrique, it won't work that way," barked a commentator from the largest Spanish sports newspaper Marca at the coach after the disappointing 1-1 draw against Poland.

As part of an online survey, in which almost 45,000 people had taken part by Sunday noon, 88 percent of the readers gave the trainer a school grade of 6 for the previous performance.

Now you have to know that the Madrid-based newspaper and its readership are traditionally hostile to Enrique.

Because as a player he once dared to use Real Madrid only as a transit station on the way to FC Barcelona and because now, fittingly, he created a novelty.

For the first time in the long history of the Spanish national team, there is no Real player in the squad for a major tournament.

From the point of view of the press, which is close to Madrid, this must inevitably lead to failure.

But the voices are also becoming more critical apart from political sensitivities.

"The alarm bells are ringing in Spain," wrote El Pais, which is to say the least.

The last group game on Wednesday against Slovakia (at 6 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the European Football Championship, on ZDF and on Magenta) will be a real final for Spain. Under certain circumstances, even a draw may not be enough to make it to the round of 16. It has to be won. But the Spaniards are just as difficult to win as they were in the times of postcard defeatism.

Against Poland, possession and visual dominance were not enough, as was the case against Sweden (0-0). Not even a penalty could avert the dilemma, Gerard Moreno's attempt landed on the post, followed by Alvaro Morata's margin in the night sky of Seville. Ironically, it was Morata who forgave the much-needed victory. After the bumpy start against Sweden, fans and the media had demanded him vehemently. In the domestic league he had scored 23 times for Villarreal, only Lionel Messi was more successful in the past season. The country hoped for goals from Moreno, but it was the much-scolded Morata who took the lead. That too is an ironic twist.

The Juventus striker is currently at war with his homeland, after a few misses against Sweden he was sometimes given whistles. He had not yet got over the abuse. After his goal against Poland, he first thanked Enrique for his trust, but then went for a verbal all-round blow. “People say what they want anyway. If I cared about what people say. We are in a country where having a say is free and far too easy, ”said Morata.

The discussions about the state of the national team will not be able to prevent his outburst of anger either. The equalization of the Poles by Robert Lewandowski has plunged Spain into a sporting crisis of meaning, in which the 6-0 win against Germany last November also took part. Since then, expectations in the country have risen enormously, and quite a few saw the Selección at the level of a serious title candidate again after years of transition. There can be no question of that at the moment. The team has big problems with scoring goals and thus automatically with winning. Defensively, she is susceptible to counterattacks, Poland could have won if they had used their own opportunities more consistently. Like Sweden, the patterns and processes are the same. "I feel great pleasureto look at this game again quickly and analyze it. Maybe we were superior, but it wasn't enough. I would have expected us to be better, ”said Enrique.

Spain coach avoided any discussion about the condition of the field in Seville, arguably the worst of all the venues. For this, the players were angry. “The place doesn't help us at all. He is in very bad shape, ”said Rodri, who said that the conditions would always play into the opponents' cards because the pitch disrupt the flow of the Spanish game. And that's what the Spaniards depend on. Against Slovakia they will depend on something that is even more essential than anything else: goals. Without them, the Spaniards will soon have to go on an unwanted vacation. Just like in the past, when postcards were still part of holidays like the beach and the sun.