Vicente del Bosque: Mastermind Behind Spain's Football Glory

Even the greatest players need direction, and on football's greatest stage, the director becomes even more important. While success might have seemed a given with the players at his disposal, Spain's 2010 World Cup winning coach Vicente Del Bosque was a master in man management. A tough defensive midfielder for 16 seasons with Real Madrid, he took on more the appearance of a kindly uncle, mediating the rivalry and massaging the egos of the Barcelona and Real Madrid megastars in his team. Despite his links to Real stars like Iker Casillas and Sergio Ramos, he was also able to get the best out of Barca's Gerard Piqué, Xavi and Andres Iniesta. Del Bosque also showed an appetite for tactics and tic-tacs. Part of Del Bosque's magic was honing Spain's tic-tac-a style. While his predecessor Luis Aragones was the chief architect of tic-tac-a within the Spanish set-up, Del Bosque will go down as the man who perfected it. He was fated for great things from the outset, orchestrating a flawless World Cup qualifying campaign and becoming the first manager of any national team to claim 10 straight victories from debut. Del Bosque steered Spain for 114 games as manager over eight years, amassing 87 victories, including the 2012 European Championship off the back of Spain's first World Cup victory in 2010. King Juan Carlos thought so highly of the performance, he canonised him as the first Marques of Del Bosque. La Roja was seemingly cemented at the top of world football, but what followed was a major turnover of key players. The tic-tac-a approach that had so baffled the world became unstitched in the year following the European Championship title defence, and Spain were eliminated in the group stage of the 2014 World Cup and the round of 16 at Euro 2016. Del Bosque announced his retirement, and the tributes were long and generous, his legacy untarnished. Having managed Real Madrid at the turn of the century, he's held aloft as the first manager in history to win the Champions League, the European Championship and the World Cup, ensuring the first Marques of Del Bosque goes down as a master director on football's greatest stage.