Spain knew, now everyone else does too. It was almost 1.30am on 15 July 2024 when Álvaro Morata, the captain who had lifted the Henry Delaunay trophy, headed down the slope and towards the team bus parked beneath the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. A European champion now, he came with a big black boombox, a small blue Euro 2024 wash bag, a mischievous look and a knowing grin. “Seems I have an eye for a player,” he said.

Seems he did. A month earlier, when the mood was not so optimistic, Morata had been asked if Spain really had any world-class footballers, the kind that could win the Ballon d’Or and thus a major trophy. “Yes,” he replied and he had started naming them: Rodri, Pedri, Nico Williams, Lamine Yamal. Now, medal in his pocket, he left the naming to them. “You choose one,” he said. “Any one.” There were candidates everywhere. They were there in Berlin and, although Morata is no longer around, they are there in Chattanooga too.

At Spain’s World Cup training base, over a little level crossing and through some woods, there is confidence. But then there always was. Players too, despite the external doubts that were dealt with in Germany. “All Rodri lacks is marketing,” Morata had insisted before the Euros and a few months later Rodri won the Ballon d’Or his captain believed he deserved before. The question may not be whether Lamine Yamal will follow but how often. Luis Enrique adds “Potter” to Pedri’s name. Fabián Ruiz has won two Champions Leagues in a row. If no one talks about Mikel Oyarzabal, especially not Mikel Oyarzabal, they should. And David Raya and Joan García were the season’s best keepers in England and Spain – and they’re the ones who won’t play.

“Why can’t Spain win the World Cup?” the coach, Luis de la Fuente, says. Usually when the word favourite comes out, footballers run the other way. Spain’s players have embraced it. There are two reasons for that: one, because that’s just other people talking; and, two, because why not? “I don’t think we were favourites at the Euros and we won it,” Rodri says.

Coming into the Euros, Spain’s players had felt the confidence they had on the inside and the confidence others did not have on the outside. In Oyarzabal’s words: “Maybe there was no crack, but look at it: we might not have had ‘names’ but we were convinced we had players who were top three in the world. And we were clear that while there were teams with very good individuals, as a group we were stronger. There were none like us. We heard the things people said, the fact they didn’t trust in us … and then people started climbing on board.”

Everyone is fully on board now. Spain’s Euros was possibly the best there has been: no champion had won every game before, and they had defeated Croatia, Italy, Germany, France and England en route. They are unbeaten in 30 games. And if that number needs an asterisk – they were defeated on penalties in the 2025 Nations League final – it is unmatched. Here’s another number: asked to put a figure on how Spain feel on the eve of the first match in Atlanta, Mikel Merino went for 100%.

Those numbers convince others; for Spain’s players, it comes more as confirmation. They’ve changed their minds, not us.

Just before Spain’s squad left Las Rozas bound for the US, Oyarzabal was asked what differences he sees between this team now and the one that won the Euros. “Not much,” he replied. The striker does a lovely line in deadpan but there is something in that.

There are differences, of course. One stands out particularly, its impact intangible and yet to be tested. Eight players have gone and they include Morata and Dani Carvajal. At Euro 2024 there was a kind of captaincy triumvirate, a leadership that was shared and complementary: Morata was empathy, humanity; Carvajal was competitiveness and character; Rodri was football. Something has been lost there and the Manchester City midfielder admits that he too will miss them.

“Mora[ta], me, Carva[jal]: we had a great group, now I’m the only one left,” he says. “I’ll try to absorb what I learned from them. And others emerge [as leaders]: Unai [Simón], Oyarzabal, Ferran [Torres]. I don’t think it will change me a lot; I played that role before. But wearing the armband is a different story.”

Yet there may be an argument that Spain are stronger than at Euro 2024. Rodri’s season has been built towards this World Cup after his knee injury and now, he says, he could not be better. Lamine Yamal, 16 in Germany, is two years older. After an injury of his own, the winger admitting “I was praying it was nothing” and missing Spain’s preparatory games, he is ready. Merino is ready too. Only Williams’ fitness is a concern. Oyarzabal has scored 13 in 11 games; he has also scored in every final he has played. Above all, though, there is a stability, an assuredness, a continuity.

“The team is more or less the same, the same group,” Oyarzabal says. “Luis has coached almost all of us at youth level. If you’re no good on the pitch, it doesn’t mean much but it’s important that it’s a healthy, respectful group, that it’s nice to be here, good day to day. At the Euros, when no one said we were favourites, we won it. We’re the same as we were then: calm, confident.”

And they are good on the pitch, just as they always were. Which doesn’t mean they will win but does mean they believe they can. The change is more about perception than players.

Rodri makes the point that even the Spain team that won three tournaments in a row between 2008 and 2012 were “unknown” once, that they had to lift their first trophy to become “names”. Sometimes recognition is not the same as reality; this team too have their trophy, but they knew they could play. “We’re the same: we have the same excitement, the same belief, the same confidence, the same group, the same good atmosphere,” Merino says. “Maybe the perception from outside has changed but inside nothing has changed at all.”

“The future is theirs,” De la Fuente insisted as his captain bounded past in Berlin. “I just hope they get me tickets to see it,” Morata said.