De la Fuente grew up in Haro, in the wine region of La Rioja, home of the Batalla del Vino, the annual wine battle where thousands dress in white and drench each other in red wine.
After retiring as a player in 1994, he spent 15 years in different roles with a succession of different clubs, including managing in the lower Spanish leagues, youth roles and assistant coach positions.
He was sacked as manager of second-tier Deportivo Alaves – where he had ended his playing career – in 2011 and spent the next 18 months out of work and quickly drifting away from football.
His story with the federation began with an act of faith as he saw a newspaper advertisement to be a youth coach with the Spanish federation.
He rang the former Spain manager Inaki Saez, who told the FA De la Fuente was the ideal man. The contract was for three months, to take Spain’s Under-19s to the European Championship in Lithuania.
He lost to France in the semi-finals but did enough to get a contract. Next he took Rodri, Unai Simon and Mikel Merino to the following Under-19s Euros and won it – and things kept going from there.
De la Fuente arrived as Spain’s national team boss in 2022, having coached most of this squad since adolescence, through under-19, under-21 and Olympic level, winning titles along the way.
He has known Dani Olmo, Martin Zubimendi, Pedri, Mikel Oyarzabal, and Marc Cucurella – and their families – for a decade.
His method? Growing a culture of respect for their rivals, for the process and preaching patience and calmness.
His work and life is built on sacrifice, humility and collective responsibility – sporting values that replicate religious ones.
It is shown in the small gestures. Half an hour before the Euro 2024 final, with the stadium filling, he was on the phone checking his family had arrived safely.
It showed again when, in this World Cup, De la Fuente, 65, pulled the federation’s photographer into a collective embrace with the squad after he had learned, mid-match, that the man’s mother had died.
It showed too, more painfully, before the semi-final against France, when a question about his own brother – who died three years ago – visibly broke him in the pre-match news conference.
Family, for De la Fuente, is the really important thing, the foundation of everything around him. His son, Alberto, is a member of Spain’s coaching staff.
