Growing pains

There's no need for an inquest – Spain reached the stage of the World Cup Finals most fans and pundits expected from them.

Truthfully, this edition of the national team just wasn't competent enough to go beyond the last 16 of the tournament.

Luis Enrique oversaw an unbalanced squad of players. Some, like the Barcelona boys Gavi, Pedri, Fati, and Balde, are expected to flourish into international-class talent. Unfortunately, they didn't have players at the peak of their profession to show them the ropes.

It was one last dance for the legends Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba. In an ideal world, they wouldn't have been at the World Cup, but there wasn't anyone who could take their places.

I'd argue the only players who are in the peak years of their career are the Manchester City pair Rodri and Laporte who are aged 26 and 28 respectively. To win a major tournament, you need the core of the team to be in that age bracket.

Luis Enrique needed to go for a system that could accommodate a limited pool of players. The likes of Asensio and Torres aren't regulars at Barça and Real Madrid. You could normally rely on Atlético Madrid players, but Marcos Llorente, Koke, and Morata are part of a club that is suffering this season.

The system worked well enough to frustrate Germany and trounce Costa Rica, but come the final count the lack of quality cost Spain. Over 1,000 passes were counted against Morocco and Spain had 76% possession; yet the inability to pass the ball into the net proved to be the downfall.

I don't think the coach got anything drastically wrong. His tactics played to the strengths of the players and mirrored their club approaches. The only player I would personally have included was goalkeeper David de Gea who has been in fine form for Manchester United. Unai Simón seemed to have a simple mistake in him every game.

Luis Enrique must hope that the teenagers mature as anticipated and more emerge in the next couple of seasons.

Spain does have representation in the quarter finals. Achraf Hakimi, who dinked in the crucial shootout penalty, was born in Madrid, but chose the country of his heritage at international level.

Abde Ezzalzouli was raised in Spain, but recognised that he stood a better chance of a cap with Morocco. He'll have fans of his parent club Barcelona and loan team Osasuna cheering him on.

Moroccan hero Bounou is displaying the form he's shown for Sevilla in La Liga and teammate Youssef En-Nesyri was a popular man in his formative Malaga days when he popped over the water as a teenager from Fez.

Success was close, so close it's only eight miles away, across the Strait of Gibraltar with the heroes of North Africa.