Spain vs Germany: Luis Enrique doesn’t know what he’s doing

Spain have to win against Germany today. They trail in their Nation’s League group by one point, and so anything other than a result sees them fall short of the finals. Being keenly aware of this, I expected Luis Enrique to go with his best possible XI for such an important fixture, and what do I get instead? This nonsense:

Spain’s best two attackers, Gerard Moreno and Mikel Oyarzabal, are both on the bench. Will we likely see both at some point today? Sure, but what if it’s too late by then? More fundamentally, what is Lucho’s obsession with Dani Olmo? Luis Enrique has always been swayed more by a player’s club than their ability, and that accounts for the Morata selection plus why it took SO LONG for Unai Simon to finally get starts in goal, but Olmo isn’t even a particularly good winger for Leipzig.

Look, I’m glad he’s starting Pau, for me Pau Torres is the best all round CB Spain has right now, and Gaya, Koke, Rodri, Canales all check out to me as well, but that front line’s a disaster, and frankly, I don’t see it doing anything against this German XI:

Sane and Gnabry are absolute killers out wide, and won’t have to worry about playing too much defense with Ferran and Olmo on the field. This XI is physically strong but Spain’s midfield should be able to create chances.. only problem is they’ll have no one to pass the ball to.

For years, I’ve made a habit of pulling for Spain whenever they aren’t playing my own United States, but Luis Enrique’s stupidity is really testing that. On the plus side, hopefully Gerard not starting means he’s more likely to stay healthy the rest of the break.