Los jugadores de la Selección se hospedarán en un complejo a estrenar en la ciudad de Johannesburgo (Sudáfrica). Todo está a punto en el hotel, lleno de comodidades para los internacionales. Dispondrán de una pequeña cocina, una sala de estar e incluso una sala de juegos para los momentos de relax. Los organizadores quieren asegurarse de que todo está en orden y los operarios se afanaban en dar los últimos retoques. El autobús de la Roja, además, luce un nuevo eslogan: 'Ilusión es mi camino, victoria mi destino'. Sudáfrica espera a España.

Sergio Ramos es un jugador de los que todo entrenador quiere tener en su equipo: tiene raza para dar y tomar y fútbol para repartir. Un defensa de los de antes.

Desde que llegara al Real Madrid le han comparado con muchos mitos del madridismo, pero Sergio Ramos quiere hacerse un nombre en sí mismo, sin necesidad de referencias. Así se entiende que su carrera haya ido ‘in crescendo’ desde que saliera del Sevilla con destino a la capital de España… y a la Selección.

Porque en España, el lateral de Camas demuestra su polivalencia al igual que hace en su equipo. Lo mismo actúa como un central marcador, que ocupa la demarcación de libre para estar siempre al quite. Es su rol con ‘La Roja’, lejos de la banda derecha que suele ocupar en su equipo, pero presto siempre por si el entrenador le necesitara en otra ubicación.

Con Piqué formará una pareja de cuidado: fuerte, seria… y con fútbol. Porque si el central del Barcelona se especializa en el juego aéreo y es normalmente el primer pase de Casillas para sacar el balón jugado, Ramos muestra un toque de balón que ya querrían para sí muchos de los mejores futbolistas del mundo. No es extraño verle realizar pases de 50 ó 60 metros medidos a sus compañeros para buscar quebrar las defensas rivales.

Fuerza, potencia, mucha clase y polivalencia. Fútbol, en definitiva, al servicio de la causa, la de la selección española que espera dar el golpe definitivo a partir de este próximo viernes en Sudáfrica.

The team

Long perceived to be the perennial bridesmaids of world football after flattering to deceive at the past nine tournaments. Semi-finalists in 1950 they should have matched that in 1994 against Italy before Mauro Tassotti's vicious elbow poleaxed Luis Enrique and left him with a nose resembling Charlie Magri's. Brilliant in the group matches in Germany four years ago, they were undone by an ageing France in the last 16, a result which finally allowed them to draw a line under the Raúl era. Without their supposed talisman they won Euro 2008 with a brand of exuberant purist football that has made them many people's favourites (again).

Vicente Del Bosque has used 4-1-4-1, 4-4-2 and 4-3-3 with Xavi and Andrés Iniesta pivotal in midfield in front of Sergio Busquets, David Silva teeing up chances from the wing and David Villa and Fernando Torres (when fit) combining with brilliant effect up front. Doubts persist about the defence, where Carles Puyol lacks pace and height and Sergio Ramos has yet to grasp positional discipline.

Portugal will be gunning for them in a neighbourly feud and they owe Italy a gubbing after 1994's bloodbath.

La Furia Roja – The Red Fury – named after the singer Billy Fury because they used to leave their fans halfway to paradise.

Take your pick from midfielders with exquisite touch, scintillating widemen in Jesús Navas and David Silva or either of two sadistically destructive strikers. Even among this array of talent, however, Villa stands out. Magnificent at Euro 2008 he is even better now after scoring 58 goals for Valencia and 18 for Spain in the two seasons since. Combines lethal finishing with feet and head (despite being stumpy) with superb ball skills and positioning.

In their dreams. They will have to wait till one of them is past it in La Liga, as they did with Fernando Hierro, to have a sniff.

Sergio Ramos likes to taunt opposition players then hides behind his hair and the referee when someone stands up to him.

With that sparsely-furnished pate and "I'm still virile" luxuriant tache, he could twin with the BBC's senior political correspondent John Pienaar.

Vicente Del Bosque won five titles with Real Madrid as a player, two as a coach as well as a pair of European Cups. The only man to make the gálacticos policy work successfully, he took the Spain job after the Euro 2008 triumph and promptly won every qualifier.

Admired for his humility and light-touch style but expectation is onerously high.

Manuel Cáceres, better known as Manuel el del Bombo, the team's self-styled No12, has been following Spain and banging "that fucking drum™" since the 1982 World Cup. The rotund Valencia bar owner returned from supporting the side in 1987 to find his family had walked out on him, a bittersweet timpani if ever there was one.

Tapas, potatoes in omelettes, most of the new world even though it was already there, the Armada, the language spoken by Dora the Explorer among others and the fiendish torture ordeals of the Inquisition, not including the comfy chair.

Old Spanish women rocked the goth look long before the snakebite-supping hordes of West Yorkshire adopted widow's weeds.

Played 10, won 10 and had to break sweat only when Turkey and Bosnia held them to tight 1-0 victories on the peninsular. David Villa scored seven and Gerard Piqué became a defensive linchpin.

"Disciples of the Bernard Manning school of race relations and serial bull tormentors in league with the Russians."

P49 W22 D12 L15 F80 A57

Highest finish: Fourth place in 1950

6: In February 2009's match against England, David Villa became the first Spain player to score in six consecutive games

Switzerland, 16 June, Moses Mabhida Stadium, 3pm

Honduras, 21 June, Ellis Park 7.30pm

Chile, 25 June, Free State Stadium, 7.30pm

They have been a joy with their intricate yet incisive passing style. The speed of Fernando Torres' recovery from a knee operation is debatable but with Xavi and others on the scene they ought to cruise through the group. Spain won Euro 2008 and any concerns reflect the workload of the players. Can they still be fluent? Semi-finalists.

From dark horse to fiery steed, Spain were changed for ever by Euro 2008. Thanks to Fernando Torres's goal against Germany and Cesc Fàbregas's penalty against Italy, la selección finally won a major tournament – and a new identity. A new mentality. This Time, England's 1982 song, could have been written for them. Declaring themselves favourites is nothing new but this time, more than any other time, Spaniards actually believe it. "If we'd said four years ago that Spain would win the European Championships and go into the World Cup with a real chance of winning it, you'd have said we were mad," Torres admits. "But not now."

As one headline put it: "Spain come into this World Cup as genuine favourites." The "unlike every other World Cup" went without saying. After Spain defeated France in Paris in the spring, one columnist wrote: "Hands up any of you who did not go to bed last night with the feeling that no one can stop this team. Step forward those of you who don't think that, barring some major accident or a coincidence of strange events, we're coming back from South Africa with the Cup under our arm. Too optimistic? No, just realistic."

Realistic might be pushing it, but it is not just the Spanish saying so. The coach, Vicente del Bosque, has constantly fled the favourites tag, like it was some kind of plague-infected rat hell-bent on biting him. It is, he insists, a "terrible trap". But however hard he runs, however cleverly he hides, there is no avoiding it. "Everyone," notes Torres, "is talking about us. Whenever coaches or players are asked for their favourites, they mention Spain. We've earned that. In the past we talked about being favourites when maybe we weren't – this time we really are."

Much of that is due to sheer talent. This generation of players is, quite simply, better than those before. Raúl is often declared the finest Spanish footballer ever, certainly their best goalscorer. Yet David Villa is now only seven behind him. Having played 46 games fewer. If Torres is fit, Fàbregas doesn't get in the side and few complain. Mikel Arteta never gets in the squad and no one has even noticed. As Thierry Henry puts it: "They have Villa and Torres; they have Xabi Alonso and Cesc, Iniesta and Xavi, and Silva. It's incredible."

Euro 2008 underlined the depth of talent and also enhanced it, changing perceptions, strengthening the selección. Without it, attitudes coming into South Africa would surely be very different. The chances too.

No one here will forget Torres putting the ball beyond Jens Lehmann. That goal on 29 June 2008 ended a 44-year wait. Spain, along with England, were the ultimate underachievers. Now England stand alone, contemplating a four-decade drought. But, says Torres, the moment Spain won Euro 2008 – the moment that not only changed their history but their future too – happened a week earlier, when Fàbregas's penalty beat Gianluigi Buffon in a shoot-out. That was the turning point.

Spain had got through a quarter‑final. And against Italy too, the side they had not beaten in a competitive match for 88 years, the one they love to hate, the country with all the qualities – said through gritted teeth – that Spain lack: luck, competitiveness, effectiveness. They had done it on penalties, after a goalless draw and on 22 June, the date they had lost on penalties three times running. They had overcome a mental barrier: before Euro2008, the band Pignoise, led by the former Real Madrid player Álvaro Benito, wrote a tournament song. It was called 'Let's Get Beyond the Quarters!' At last Spain had done.

David Villa says, "owed us." Now it no longer weighs them down. Had Spain lost to Italy their early-tournament brilliance would have been lost in a familiar fog of depression. Instead, everything they do was reinforced, vindicated. Primarily, the adoption of a ball-playing game. For years Spain sought an identity; now it is unshakable, embedded, resistant. Natural. "Spain play with incredible ease," Arsène Wenger says. The ball belongs to them. "Watching them on TV is lovely," Henry says, "but playing against them is infuriating: you never get possession."

The clarity and stability, the contentedness, is startling. Debates are few – the outcry for Víctor Valdés to be included as third-choice keeper when most countries struggle to find a first spoke volumes about the strength of the squad and was at least in part provoked by club sectarianism and boredom.

But for Euro 2008, things might have been different. Style is fine but there's no security blanket like success. Each victory reinforced the model, a virtuous circle; very occasional poor performances are not enough – at least not yet – to leave people questioning it. After Spain's disappointing 1-0 win over South Korea on Thursday, a result that once would have had them panicking, the county's best-selling newspaper simply stated: "Now's not the time to sound the alarms but to keep the faith in a team that has earned it."

Earn is not the half of it. The style works. The stats are uncontestable. At the end of the previous friendly, against Saudi Arabia, the defender Carlos Marchena broke the world record, surpassing Garrincha by going 50 internationals unbeaten. Spain won 10 out of 10 in World Cup qualifying – the first team ever to do so – and have lost only one of their last 47 matches. They have won 36 of their last 37. Including beating Italy, Argentina, France and England. Twice. During the France match, the St Denis fans started olé-ing the opposition's every touch.

"Spain have confirmed that they're one of the great favourites for the World Cup," the France coach, Raymond Domenech, said afterwards. "They have exceptional talent, sacrificed for the collective good. They play without haste and yet they do so with intensity and intent. Their circulation of the ball is spectacular and the final pass from midfield is like a penalty for anyone else."

Asked how he would handle them in South Africa, Domenech shrugged. "Luckily, we won't play Spain until the final so I don't need to think of that just yet," he said, adding quickly: "If we get there." If we do. He, like so many others, didn't doubt that Spain would.

Sergio Ramos captained Spain for the first time yesterday against South Korea. At just 24 years of age, Ramos is also one of the captain's at Real Madrid. The defender already has 59 caps. He made his debut on 26 March, 2005, against China in Salamanca. Sergio embodies the values of footballers that have been leaders on the Spanish national team throughout its history, such as current team captain Iker Casillas.

Ramos and Iniesta were the only two players in the starting lineup against South Korea who also made the starting eleven against Saudi Arabia. None of the players who have seniority over Ramos on the squad made the lineup -Casillas (103 caps), Xavi (84), Puyol (82), Torres (72) and Xabi Alonso (67).

It is also worth mentioning Raul Albiol is still undefeated as an international. Ever since the Real Madrid defender made his international debut on 13 March, 2007, Spain have only failed to win three games, none of which featured Albiol (Finland, 0-0; Italy, 0-0, Spain won in the penalty shootout; and USA, 0-2).

Mourinho ya tiene los mandos de la nave. Su primera decisión ayer fue la de cambiar el plan inicial de pretemporada que tenía preparado el Madrid antes de su incorporación. Para empezar, el portugués retrasa la llegada al trabajo de los no mundialistas del 12 al 16 de julio. No quiere más de 10 días entrenándose en Valdebebas y cambiará el stage de pretemporada en Irlanda por Estados Unidos.

Ésta es la novedad más importante. El técnico madridista avisó en El Larguero: "Debo saber si el Madrid tiene compromisos firmados en pretemporada". Ayer, el club blanco empezó a trabajar en la elaboración de la nueva concentración norteamericana. Se barajan dos ciudades en las que Mourinho estuvo el año pasado: Los Ángeles (diez días) y Boston (cinco días). El entrenador ha recomendado las instalaciones de la Universidad de UCLA y Harvard. En función de la disponibilidad de instalaciones (el Inter, por ejemplo, pasará por allí) y plazas hoteleras, se elegirá un destino u otro.

Gira.

Mientras, la gira asiática está en el aire porque el inicio de la Liga podría adelantarse al penúltimo fin de semana de agosto y no habría tiempo material. La LFP lo decidirá en julio. El México-España del 11 de agosto obligó a abortar los partidos previstos en Seúl, Sanghai y Tokio. No falta trabajo en las oficinas blancas...

Africa United is the story of modern day Africa told through its soccer. Travelling across thirteen countries, from Cairo to the Cape, Steve Bloomfield, the former Africa Correspondent for The Independent, meets players and fans, politicians and rebel leaders, discovering the role that soccer has played in shaping the continent. This wide-ranging and incisive book investigates Africa’s love of soccer, its increasing global influence, the build-up to the 2010 World Cup itself and the social and political backdrop to the greatest show on earth.

Africa United is the story of modern-day Africa told through its soccer. Traveling across thirteen countries, from Cairo to the Cape, Steve Bloomfield meets players and fans, politicians and rebel leaders, discovering the role that soccer has played in shaping the continent. He recounts how soccer has helped to stoke conflicts and end wars, bring countries together and prop up authoritarian regimes.

A lively and elegantly reported travelogue, Africa United calls attention to the amazing relationships between people and soccer, and to the state of Africa on the cusp of the biggest moment in its sporting history, the 2010 World Cup.