Collapse, Rebirth, and the Road to 2026 — La Roja Today

The summit of glory did not last long. La Roja, who conquered the world in 2010, fell apart in just four years. Barcelona took on astronomical debt and, in the end, let go of even Messi, the very symbol of the club. Yet Spanish football did not end there. From the ashes, a new generation rose. And in the summer of 2026, La Roja stands once again on the brink of the top of the world. From collapse to rebirth — and on to a present whose ending is not yet written. The story of a hundred years catches up with this very moment.

The Fall of a Dynasty

Every summit has a downward slope waiting beyond it. At the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Spain, the defending champions, vanished at the group stage with startling ease. The golden generation had aged, and the tiki-taka that had once seemed invincible had been studied, countered, and stripped of its shine. From there, La Roja entered a long era of decline.

The clubs, too, stood on the edge of crisis. Barcelona, once the picture of splendour, saw reckless management and the coronavirus pandemic converge, and by 2021 they were carrying a total debt of 1.35 billion euros. Their wage bill stood at 103 per cent of total revenue — they were paying out more in salaries than they earned, teetering on the edge of ruin. And this financial crisis led to an ending no one had imagined. In August 2021, Barcelona announced that they could not extend Lionel Messi’s contract. Although the terms had already been agreed, La Liga’s strict financial regulations would not permit it. The man who had served the club for twenty-one years and etched his name as its all-time top scorer left on a free transfer for Paris Saint-Germain. An era drew quietly to a close.

Commercialisation, a New Battlefield

Behind Messi’s departure lay a transformation of football itself: the arrival of an age in which broadcasting rights and global money held the fate of the clubs.

Real Madrid’s president Florentino Pérez had once gathered world stars such as Zidane, Ronaldo, and Beckham in his ‘Galácticos’ policy, growing the club into an enormous global brand. He sold the training ground to clear the debt, and used that brand power to open up the world, and above all the Asian market. Football had become, at once, a game on the pitch and a business in which vast sums of money moved. In 2021 there was even a move, led by Real Madrid and Barcelona, to found a closed ‘European Super League’ for the elite alone (it collapsed within days, meeting fierce resistance from fans and the football world). La Liga, too, sold off part of the league to an investment fund and, in 2023, rebranded — turning the wheel towards a global strategy for survival. Fervour, sound management, and vast capital: keeping these three in balance became the greatest challenge of modern Spanish football.

La Roja Reborn, and the Eve of the Final

Yet the true strength of Spanish football lay in its academies. At the bottom of the decline, the next generation was quietly coming of age.

In 2024, the Spain side led by manager Luis de la Fuente won Euro 2024 with the perfect record of seven wins from seven — their first major title since del Bosque. The final, in Berlin, was a 2-1 victory over England, with goals from Nico Williams and Oyarzabal bringing them the crown. The one who stunned the world at that tournament was the seventeen-year-old Lamine Yamal. At seventeen years and one day, he stood on the pitch for a major tournament final, setting the record as the youngest ever to do so. Together with Pedri, Nico Williams, and the rest of the new generation, La Roja was reborn in a new form some have called ‘tiki-taka 2.0’.

And in 2026, La Roja set their sights on even greater heights. Having topped their group, they saw off Austria 3-0, Portugal 1-0, and Belgium 2-1 in the knockout stage, and then, in the semi-final, beat France 2-0. Across seven matches to this point, they have conceded just one goal. An iron defence, and the brilliance of a new generation born of the academies. La Roja has reached the stage of the final once more. On 19 July, in New York, Spain contest the last match of all, with the chance to be champions of the world for the second time and the first since 2010, sixteen years ago. The story of a hundred years now waits, at this very moment, for the whistle of the final.