This summer's tournament in Mexico, Canada and the United States will be the first World Cup to feature 48 teams and the Spain manager is pleased that it will give a number of nations a chance of competing on football's biggest stage.

De la Fuente told World Soccer magazine: "One of the reasons why this World Cup will be the best in history is because it allows so many national teams to take part, countries we haven't seen before will get the chance to be on the stage and we'll see that they are well organised, technically good. This isn't what it was years ago.

"And I don't see a convergence of styles or level as a bad thing: I think it's fantastic that Cape Verde play like Brazil."

Spain are among the favourites to win the World Cup but de la Fuente feels that the tournament is wide open.

The coach, who guided La Roja to glory at Euro 2024, said: "All of Europe is there. There are the African nations: Morocco have a great team, Senegal have a great team, Egypt are really good... go to South America: Colombia a great team, and that's without mentioning Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay. Ecuador have great players.

"I don't think we have ever had a competition where there are so many candidates.

"Us? Yes. But that doesn't guarantee anything. There are many others: Germany, France, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, Italy, England."

De la Fuente feels that the attitude of his players is perfect to cope with the demands of a World Cup campaign.

He said: "This generation is insatiable and this group will never takes its feet off the ground.

"They never get tired of working, competing, being a team. We have the best footballers in the world – I have always insisted that we need to value what we have – but we also choose good people. They will never let opportunity pass them by because of an excess of vanity."