India, June 15 -- In December 2022, the Spanish men's football team had reached a crossroads. They had been eliminated by Morocco in the round of 16 at the World Cup in Qatar, and the national coach Luis Enrique resigned as a result.

A decade prior, the golden generation of Spanish men's football had won two European Championships with the 2010 World Cup in between, effectively raising the bar for what can be deemed a successful campaign for the team. By that standard, the defeat in Qatar marked a fifth consecutive failure at a major competition. One made worse by then Morocco coach Walid Regragui saying Spain went sideways more than forward.

So Spain needed a new coach who could infuse some new energy into a team in danger of taking fa...