by Ian Farquharson

Created on: August 19, 2010

Soccer is one of the most popular sports played and at the top international level there have always been a few teams that have dominated. These typically come from either Europe or South America and one of the best from Europe is Spain. They have a proud history of success in soccer at both club and international level. In recent times the Spanish international soccer team has managed some great success and they have been one of the best soccer teams around.

Spain has always been a top soccer nation and this is demonstrated by the success of their club sides, with Real Madrid and Barcelona having been two of the best sides in European club soccer for many years. The success of these two and the other top Spanish club sides means that Spain has produced many top soccer players over the years. Having so many great players to choose from usually translates into success at international level and although Spain has always been considered one of the top international soccer teams this has not resulted in a great deal of trophy winning success over the years. However this has changed in recent times and the current Spanish soccer team is one of the best the country has ever had.

The dominance of the current Spanish soccer team started after the 2006 World Cup. Although they qualified for this and won all their group games, they lost out in the round of 16 games, 3-1 to France. This would have been a disappointment for them, although for being such a great team Spain had a pretty poor record in the World Cup up to and including the 2006 tournament with their best performance up to 2006 being a fourth placed finish in 1950.

However, following the 2006 World Cup Spain was to go on an incredible run of form that was to see them lose very few games and enjoy trophy winning success. This included a run of 35 games between the end of 2006 and the middle of 2009 where they remained undefeated. This tied the record of the Brazil team of the early 1990’s which had enjoyed a similar run of undefeated games between 1993 and 1996.

In the midst of their 3 year undefeated streak Spain was to record their first trophy win in a major soccer tournament for 44 years. Spain had won the European Championships in 1964 and they repeated this success when they defeated Germany 1-0 in the 2008 European Championship final to claim the trophy for a second time.

This success was celebrated by the Spanish public and put them in good heart for their team’s chances in the 2010 World

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