Spain = The Alabama Crimson Tide (Football)

Spain players celebrating their 2010 World Cup title

Ha Ha Clinton-Dix won 2 national titles at Alabama before entering the NFL Draft.

As the Crimson Tide has dominated U.S. college football since the end of the last decade, the "Red Fury" ("La Furia Roja") has dominated international football. The reigning World Cup champions sandwiched their first such triumph in 2010 between titles in the 2008 and 2012 European Championships, making Spain the first team ever to win 3 major international tournaments in a row. Like Alabama, Spain has channeled their overwhelming talent into a conservative, tightly-controlled system (except at Euro 2008, when they had a different coach and played a more open style), earning scorn from pundits for being "boring" and grinding out a lot of 1-0 wins.

Spain / Barcelona center back Gerard Piqué is Shakira's boyfriend and baby daddy. Expect a lot of gratuitous crowd shots of Shakira during Spain's matches... not that I'll be complaining.

That, however, may change this year. Brazil ran Spain out of the stadium in the final of last year's Confederations Cup, which prompted Coach Vicente del Bosque to bring a few new players into the squad. Like a Nick Saban team, Spain knows how to "recruit." La Roja have recently won two major "recruiting battles" for highly talented dual-national players. One, Thiago Alcàntara, midfielder for Bayern Munich and formerly Barcelona (don't get me started on that one...), committed to Spain over Brazil and Italy nearly 3 years ago, but will miss this World Cup due to a knee injury. The other is fighting to recover from an injury, and Spain desperately needs him at or near full strength to become the first country since 1962 Brazil to repeat as World Cup champions.

He is Diego Costa, a Brazilian-born striker who plays for Atlético Madrid and got his Spanish passport last summer. Costa is somewhat of a late bloomer. Now 25 years old, he didn't start playing at a top class level until about 2 years ago. While Brazil could certainly use him now, for various (stupid) reasons, Brazilian Coach Luis Felipe Scolari never called Costa up for a competitive match... and never even TRIED until after Spain asked him to play for them. (I'll talk about this more in my preview of Brazil.)

Diego Costa (right, #19) either celebrating a goal for Atlético Madrid, or running up an invisible escalator.

Spain won their 3 major titles by controlling possession of the ball with an armada of the world's best midfielders cycling quick, short, one- and two-touch passes. That has become commonly known as "tiki taka." Without getting too tactical here, what Brazil (and for that matter Italy, who held Spain to a 0-0 draw in the Confeds Cup semifinals but lost on penalties) did to shut down Spain last year was flood the midfield with big, fast players playing aggressive, high-pressure defense to take away the Spanish midfielders' space. That defense leaves a team vulnerable to long passes downfield; but Spain didn't have anyone who was both fast enough to get behind the defensive block and into dangerous positions and a skilled enough goal scorer to finish chances once he got there. Enter Costa, a player who was practically designed in a lab to thwart that defensive tactic.

...If Costa is healthy that is. He suffered a hamstring injury in Atlético's title-clinching final league match against Barcelona. He tried to play a week later in the Champions League final against Real Madrid, but couldn't move well and didn't even last 10 minutes. Spain's coaching staff says they expect him healthy before the World Cup starts, but hamstrings can be very tricky injuries. If Costa can't play or is significantly hampered by the injury, Spain's reign will almost surely end this year.

P.S. Spanish football also has a troubling history of racism, including 2 big incidents in just the last few months (HERE and HERE).