“You’ve filtered these, right?” Luis de la Fuente asks, looking at the laptop of your questions on the table in front of him, and cracking up. He takes his seat on the third floor of the Cotton Bowl, Dallas, where Spain have just finished training ahead of their last-16 meeting with Portugal. Some of the players are still out there in the sunshine, in the place where Bebeto rocked the baby in 1994. It is the morning after that Cape Verde performance against Argentina. The World Cup is a creator of memories, pictures in the mind that never go. We all have one, or more.“Because of what it means for Spain, it has to be [Andrés] Iniesta’s goal,” De la Fuente says. “It’s not very original but that’s the image of the World Cup for us. I would have been at home watching it. I have always been very into the national team. Whenever the Selección played, it was an event at my parents’ house. My parents would watch, my brothers and sisters, people would come round to watch. That’s in Haro, La Rioja. And then as a professional, wherever the game found me, I would watch it. I would enjoy every World Cup game, but especially the Spain ones. There are other images of the World Cup, but that’s the most powerful.”Now that we know how good Cape Verde are, should we see the first Spain game in a different context? LeoI’m someone who if he has to offer an opinion likes to do so with a lot of information to hand. When I don’t know anything, I don’t offer an opinion. Before the tournament I said it was going to be a historic World Cup and that people would discover lots of national teams that even if they didn’t have a ‘name’, even if they weren’t mediatico, would find their place. We would end up recognising how important they are. And one of those is Cape Verde. We were not surprised by their performance. I said that what they do, they do very well. And it’s true.When Lamine Yamal was asked which opponent he fears the most, he said Nuno Mendes. What advice would you give Lamine for the next time he faces Nuno? AmiglobalHe has faced him with his club and his country [Lamine has played Mendes four times: three times for Barcelona, losing twice and winning once, and in the 2025 Nations League final, which Spain lost to Portugal on penalties]. In that process of development that Lamine is still in, he knows that it is the big games against great opponents that lay down a marker: they’re the ones that shape and define you, show you a path. Lamine is a competitor and he will have the desire to remove the thorn from his side from that [Nations League] game. But a long time has passed since then and Lamine has grown a lot. Lamine is not the player he was a year ago; he’s another player, more mature, more assured, he reads the games better, logically. With every stage of his development, every experience, he will be more complete. So what would I say to him? ‘Be yourself, enjoy football, with the responsibility that comes with it, the responsibility that you take on, but be yourself.’yamalI’d like to know about Borja Iglesias’ role in the squad. Thanks. Hannah DarvillBorja is a very important player. He’s a player who is preparing, working so that he is ready whenever he is needed. The other day, I said I was very sad that in the game against Austria, there was a moment – and I had told him, too – that I was just about to make two changes: Martín Zubimendi and him. But the game takes you to a place, then it takes you to another one, you can’t control it, and just then something happened in the game that led me take a different decision. We made a different change. But this is a group of players who are ready to compete in the moment in which they are needed. I would like them all to have an opportunity, but it is a World Cup. They are all very important. And Borja’s role is to make the rest of the players better because he is very good and that makes demands on the rest so they can be better.Is De la Fuente aware that millions of Garcías have fallen in love with the Cucurellas, Yamals, Oyarzabals and Porros of La Roja? José GarcíaIt’s globalisation. Other, new winds blow. Those processes bring different races, creeds and ideologies, an adaptation to something different. Football is a reflection of society. There’s a role for football to play in integration. Football is a powerful tool for unity, it’s a school of values. There is an ugly part to football, of course, but I prefer not to dwell on that; the true essence of football is very positive, very good for society and that’s what we have to hold on to. It is an agent for integration.What is Luis’s favourite word in Spanish? Jane BlackThe word I like best is “respect”. With respect as the starting point, you can build anything. The edifice of coexistence is built upon foundations of respect. I read that one day, and it’s true. The key word in my life is “respect”. And it’s the word I most use with the players, too. And without actually using it, without actually saying it, it’s still reflected in everything; in the decisions, in the behaviour, in the attitude. That’s the key word.What’s the hardest thing about being seleccionador? Ethan Taylor