PARIS (Reuters) – An ecstatic Luis de la Fuente, coach of Spain’s senior national team, said his country’s football should be more highly valued after the under-23 side’s triumph in the final of the Olympic tournament against France on Friday.
De la Fuente led the under-23 team three years ago in their silver medal finish at the Tokyo Games before being named senior national team manager and winning the European Championship last month.
The manager asked people to appreciate the gold medal Santi Denia’s squad won in Paris, the first for the country since 1992, and the hard work behind it following a summer where the Spanish under-19 team also claimed the European Championship title.
“We are not aware of what we have achieved this year and we do not value Spanish football enough. Let’s get rid of our prejudices, really, almost no team can achieve this,” De la Fuente told reporters.
“Also the under-19 team, under-21 European runners-up last year… Let’s give importance to what has been achieved today, this is a historic night, we have lived an epic story that will go down in the history of the Olympics and Spanish sport.”
The 63-year-old coach also praised Fermin Lopez and Alex Baena who were part of his squad at the Euros before they joined the Olympic team last month.
They became the only two players, alongside France’s Albert Rust in 1984, to win both titles in the same summer.
“Fermin and Baena are very generous,” he said. “They wanted to be here with their teammates, with a fantastic team coached by a wonderful technical staff.”
The Olympic football title also represents the first gold medal in a team sport for Spain in 28 years.
(Reporting by Janina Nuno Rios in Paris; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
