In the round of 1/8 finals of the 2025 World Cup (U-20), Ukraine's youth team drew Spain — the winner of the 2024 European Championship (U-19) where the participants for the world championship were selected from the European confederation.

A year ago in Northern Ireland, the Spaniards defeated Italy in the semifinals (1:0), and then beat France in the final (2:0). At that time, four players from the team (defender Jarrek Gashorovsky, midfielder Gerard Hernandez, and forwards Iker Bravo and Dani Rodriguez) were selected for the all-star team.

By the way, Spain's U-20 national team qualified for this age category World Cup for the first time since 2013, although they previously won the tournament (1999), reached the final (1985, 2003), and made it to the top four (1995). In total, this is the 16th U-20 World Cup for Spain.

At the current World Cup, the team led by 45-year-old coach Paco Gallardo started with a loss against their geographical neighbor Morocco (0:2), then lost to Mexico (2:2), and in the final match had to play Brazil for maximum results, which they achieved thanks to Iker Bravo's goal (1:0).

The majority of players on Spain's roster are from local clubs. The only exception is Iker Bravo, who scored the decisive goal against Brazil and was selected for the all-star team of Euro-2024 (U-19). He represents Udinese in Italy.

The Spanish squad could have been much stronger, but Lamine Yamal, Pau Cubarsi (both from Barcelona), Dinh Guyson (Real Madrid), Jesus Rodriguez (Italian Como), Alex Jimenez (English Bournemouth) and a group of players valued in millions of euros by Transfermarkt stayed with their clubs.