Spain in 2026: the Red Sticks' successful transition under Caldas

On 4 August 2024, Spain faces the number one in the world. Belgium, reigning Olympic champion, on home Olympic soil in Paris, in a quarter-final. Spain wins 3-2. Marc Miralles drags home a penalty corner, the team holds firm, and a country that had been waiting sixteen years for its best Olympic result advances to the semi-final. It is not an upset in the sense of luck. It is the harvest of a rebuild.

This dossier is about that rebuild. About how the Red Sticks, the nickname the Spanish men's team carries in the hockey world, deliberately chose a generational change after the Tokyo Games, and how head coach Max Caldas arranged that change so that the team came out of it not weaker but stronger. It is about the drag flick of the Cunill brothers, the calm of a naturalised Olympic champion, and a crop of players in their twenties who took European Championship bronze in 2025. And it is about the honest question hanging over the 2026 World Cup: is this team built to peak when it matters, or does it only peak when no one expects it?

World ranking and qualification

Spain goes into the 2026 World Cup as a team that has stood higher than where it stands now, and that knows it. On the FIH world ranking, Spain still hovered around fourth and fifth place in 2025, but in 2026 the team dropped to seventh position. That is not a free fall, but it is a warning: the margins at the top are small and Spain sits at the lower end of the chasing pack, just behind Germany and Argentina and well behind the absolute top of Belgium, the Netherlands and England.

Qualification for the World Cup came through the FIH Pro League. In the 2024-25 season Spain finished third, behind the Netherlands and Belgium, and that earned a direct World Cup ticket. It was a historic result, the best Pro League finish the team had ever achieved. That is precisely why the contrast with the following season is so telling, but more on that later.

The continental dynamic largely determines where Spain stands. Europe is the toughest region in world hockey: six of the ten best countries in the world are European, and Spain has to prove itself in that company time and again. A seventh place on the world ranking means in practice that Spain is fifth or sixth in Europe, an outsider for the medals, no longer an established powerhouse but also not a team you underestimate. It is exactly the position from which the finest surprises arise, and the cruellest disappointments.

All of Spain's World Cup appearances

Spain is one of the constants of world hockey: the country took part in virtually every World Cup edition since the first in 1971, and that first edition was not by chance played in Barcelona.

The major tournaments

Spain has never won a world title, but it came close twice. In 1971, at the very first edition in its own Barcelona, Spain reached the final and lost narrowly to Pakistan. In 1998 in Utrecht, Spain stood in the final once again, this time beaten by hosts the Netherlands. In between and afterwards the team took bronze in 2006 in Mönchengladbach. At the Olympic Games the harvest is higher: silver in 1980 in Moscow, silver in 1996 in Atlanta and silver again in 2008 in Beijing, when Spain went down in the final to Germany. That Beijing silver is the benchmark against which every generation since has been measured.

Recent editions

The two most recent World Cups tell the story of a team under construction. In 2018 in India, Spain finished eleventh, a low point, a team that had lost touch with the top. In 2023, again in India, the picture was already different: Spain reached the quarter-final and lost there 3-4 to Australia, a match it could have won. The upward line set in motion with Caldas became visible for the first time at the 2023 World Cup, and got its real breakthrough in Paris 2024.

Philosophy and approach

Max Caldas is an Argentine who built his entire coaching career in the Netherlands, and that is no detail. He was an assistant with the Dutch women when they took Olympic gold in 2008, then became head coach of those same women and made them world champions in 2014, and afterwards led the Dutch men. When he took over Spain in 2021, he brought the structured Dutch hockey school to a country that was known precisely for individual class and unpredictability.

In an interview with the Spanish federation Caldas put into words how he sees the work: not as a sprint, but as "una maratón de sprints", a marathon of sprints. And about the constant need to keep evolving, he said in that same conversation that "lo que nos trajo hasta aquí no nos lleva hasta allá", what brought us here will not take us there. It is a coaching philosophy that honours the past without leaning on it. What made the team good in Paris is not automatically enough for the World Cup.

In a conversation with Argentine media Caldas explained what drew him to Spain. He already knew the Red Sticks from his time on the Dutch staff, where one of his tasks was to study the opponent. He had seen the Spanish youth play, the under-16, 18 and 21, and knew what was coming. What motivated him, he said, was integral work with the squad, putting together a staff that pushed back on him, and letting the youngest grow up with an awareness of what it means to play for the senior side.

Paris 2024: fourth place and the legacy

The Paris Games became the confirmation of the project. In the group Spain lost to Great Britain and the Netherlands, but it beat reigning world champion Germany 2-0, with goals from José "Chefo" Basterra and Pepe Cunill, and drew with host nation France. In the quarter-final came the 3-2 against Belgium. The semi-final was lost 0-4 to the Netherlands, and in the bronze match India proved too strong at 2-1, despite a penalty stroke from Miralles. Fourth place. The best Olympic result since the silver of Beijing, and more importantly: achieved with a team in the middle of a rejuvenation.

The legacy of Paris is not the medal that just slipped away, but the proof that the changing of the guard worked. Players who a few years earlier did not yet exist at this level were now standing in the semi-final of the Games.

Euros 2025 Mönchengladbach

A year after Paris, Spain confirmed the trend at the EuroHockey Championship in Mönchengladbach. In the bronze match France were the opponents at 2-0. Marc Recasens opened the scoring, and three minutes from time Nicolás Álvarez settled the match, a player in his early twenties who had broken through to the regular core at that same tournament. It was the first European medal for the Spanish men since the silver of 2019, and the moment the young guard showed they were not just taking part, but deciding.

FIH Pro League 2024-25 and 2025-26

Here the story turns honest. The Pro League lays bare mercilessly, over two seasons, what the strength and the vulnerability of this team is. In 2024-25 Spain finished a historic third and claimed the World Cup ticket. In 2025-26 the team slipped back to seventh place, level on points with Germany but with an inferior goal difference.

The 2025-26 season showed both faces of Spain within a few weeks. The team lost to the Netherlands, twice to England and to Australia, but beat India 0-2 and pulled off an impressive win over Argentina. Against Belgium it came up just short, 2-3, in a sweltering Wavre. Four wins in thirteen matches: that is the reality with which Spain heads to the World Cup. The peaks are those of a medal contender, the troughs those of a team that does not yet reach the highest level every week.

Preparation schedule towards August 2026

The definitive warm-up matches towards the World Cup will be announced by the RFEH as August approaches. A concrete, verified schedule is not yet available at the time of writing; this block will be completed as soon as the federation makes the preparation internationals official.

The staff under Caldas

Caldas leads a staff that combines the Dutch structure with Spanish hockey knowledge. The goalkeeping coach is Bernardino Herrera, himself still a Spanish international between the posts at the 2004 Games. Borja Movellán is responsible for tactical preparation and player development, and Oriol Torras links the youth pipeline to the senior side, a key role in a team that runs precisely on that pipeline. The video analysis formally lies with Diego Gavilán. The overarching organisation falls under the Real Federación Española de Hockey, with its training base at the CAR in Sant Cugat near Barcelona.

Training group 2025-26

The group below is the squad with which Spain played the 2025-26 Pro League season, the most recent official training group. The definitive World Cup 18 will only be announced towards the summer of 2026. Caps and years of birth come from the official FIH player report.

Caps and years of birth according to the FIH player report for the 2025-26 Pro League. Clubs may change due to the transfer window.

Four key players

Marc Miralles is the heart and the captain of this team. The midfielder, for years active with HC Bloemendaal in the Dutch Hoofdklasse, is by far the most dangerous penalty corner taker for Spain. His drag flick, called the arrastre in Spain, is precise and hard to read, and he only gives away his direction at the very last moment. He is the constant factor in the changing of the guard: the man who was there before and after the rejuvenation, and who holds the team together.

Joaquín Menini brings something no other Spaniard has: an Olympic gold medal. Menini won the Olympic tournament of Rio with Argentina in 2016. Born in Argentina but holding a Spanish passport, he switched to Spain in 2022 after a conflict with the Argentine federation and three years without an international, on Caldas's initiative. He is the calm point in midfield, the link between defence and attack, and the winner's mentality a young team needs.

Luis Calzado has, in the years under Caldas, grown into the undisputed first-choice goalkeeper. He stood between the posts both in Paris and at the 2025 Euros, and proved his worth in the biggest moments. In the Olympic qualifier against Ireland he kept the Spanish lead intact in the closing stages with a double save, first on the penalty corner and immediately afterwards on the rebound. For the 2025-26 season he swapped Real Club de Polo for the Dutch SV Kampong.

The Cunill brothers form the penalty corner arsenal together with Miralles. Pepe Cunill, midfielder of Atlètic Terrassa, scored the decisive 2-0 against Germany in Paris and grew into an ice-cold alternative at the edge of the circle. His older brother Pau Cunill, defender at the same club, possesses his own powerful arrastre, so that opponents never know who they have to prepare for.

Competition analysis per line

The Caldas system

Under Caldas, Spain plays an offensive, energetic and daring style, in the federation's own words ofensivo, enérgico y atrevido. The core is pressing high, switching quickly after winning the ball, and giving room from within a clear structure to the individual quality that has always defined Spanish hockey. Caldas describes it as a clear structure that leaves room for adventure: the foundation must be so solid that players dare to take calculated risks.

In possession Spain looks for width, with wing defenders who push high to pull apart the opponent's first line of pressure. Against teams that press high, Spain regularly chooses the direct route: a long ball forward, where the attacking leader takes up position as a target man, holds the ball and waits for the team to join. It is a way to neutralise an aggressive press in one move.

And here comes the honest caveat. Spain's greatest vulnerability is not tactical but physical and mental: sustaining this high level across a full tournament. The 2025-26 Pro League showed that the team can beat the best and lose comfortably a week later. A playing style built on intensity and pressing demands a deep, fresh squad, and that is exactly where the tension lies: the rotation has produced talent, but not yet the bench and the consistency of the absolute top. At a World Cup with pool matches, an intermediate round and knock-out stages in a short span, that is the scenario in which Spain can come unstuck early.

The goalkeeping battle

The pecking order in goal is clear: Calzado is first goalkeeper, Revilla the second. The more interesting question is what happens if Spain falls behind in the closing stages. Caldas is not afraid to pull his goalkeeper for an extra outfield player, as in the bronze match against India in Paris, when Spain launched a final offensive with eleven outfield players in the closing minutes. It is a gamble that fits the daring identity, and one that can just as easily fail as succeed.

The penalty corner as a weapon

The penalty corner is Spain's sharpest weapon, and it is deliberately set up in multiple ways. Miralles is the first option with his drag flick, but as soon as an opponent focuses entirely on him, Spain has the Cunills as an alternative. In addition the team works with variants in which Miralles steps over the ball and a teammate takes over the finish, or in which the rebound is aggressively organised with players ready to tap in a saved drag flick after all. It is not a single unstoppable shot, but a system that confronts the goalkeeper and the first runner with ever new choices.

Germany: the mirror and the pain

Against Germany Spain plays its best and its hardest matches. The 2008 Olympic final in Beijing was lost to Germany, the heaviest defeat in recent history. At Paris 2024 Spain took a little revenge with the 2-0 in the group stage. Germany remains the benchmark: if Spain beats Germany, it counts.

Netherlands: the teacher and the wall

For Spain the Netherlands is the team that perfected the Dutch school that Caldas brought with him. Spain has not beaten the Oranje for years, who swept them aside 4-0 in the semi-final in Paris. At the same time a large part of the Spanish core trains week in, week out in the Dutch Hoofdklasse, against and alongside the players of precisely that wall.

Belgium: the upset as a reference point

The 3-2 in the quarter-final in Paris is the proof of the whole project. Belgium was number one in the world, and Spain won. In the 2025-26 Pro League the gap proved small again with a 2-3 in Wavre, of all places the spot where Spain plays its World Cup pool.

India: the hurdle that won't fall

India denied Spain bronze in Paris with a 2-1 in the bronze match, and earlier India had already cost Spain an Olympic final in 1980. It is an opponent that has been just too clever for Spain at crucial moments, and with that a psychological hurdle.

Key players per rival

• Germany: Niklas Wellen, Gonzalo Peillat (the other naturalised Argentine of European hockey), Christopher Rühr.
• Netherlands: Thierry Brinkman, Jip Janssen, Koen Bijen.
• Belgium: Arthur Van Doren, Tom Boon, Victor Wegnez.
• India: Harmanpreet Singh, Manpreet Singh.
• Australia (pool opponent): Aran Zalewski, Jeremy Hayward.

The Spanish hockey mentality has always been one of class without a safety net. The country produced generations of technically gifted players who at their best were spellbinding and at their worst unreliable. What Caldas has tried to change is not the class but the safety net. His message to the players, as he put it to a group of coaches, is that the staff's work is a service to the players, not the other way around. The structure is there to make the players better, not to smother their creativity.

That sounds abstract, but it became concrete in Paris. A team that used to fall apart after conceding a goal held firm against Belgium at 3-2 and defended the lead away. A team that used to play one good match at a major tournament and then disappear now stacked up wins and narrow defeats all the way to a semi-final. The mental gain of the Caldas era is that the Red Sticks have learned to see their best level not as a stroke of luck but as something they can summon. That summoning it does not yet succeed every match is the next step, and exactly what is at stake at the World Cup.

Menini plays a quiet leading role in that change of mentality. An Olympic champion who shows every day in training what winning demands changes the standard of a dressing room without having to say a word.

Spanish hockey has a heart, and that heart beats in Terrassa, an industrial town just north of Barcelona. Here lie the clubs that turn out internationals generation after generation: Club Egara, Atlètic Terrassa, Junior FC, and a little further into the city the Barcelona side Real Club de Polo. When Barcelona hosted the Games in 1992, the Olympic hockey was played not in the city itself but in Terrassa, at the Estadi Olímpic de Terrassa. For Spanish hockey, Catalonia is what Bloemendaal and Den Bosch together are for Dutch hockey: the place where the sport truly lives.

That also explains why so many Spanish internationals play abroad. The Spanish league is strong but small, and the best players move to the Dutch Hoofdklasse or the Belgian league, where the level and the money are higher. Miralles at Bloemendaal, Menini and Recasens via Rotterdam to the Spanish circuit and the Belgian KHC Dragons respectively, Calzado at Kampong: the Spanish core is to a large extent an export product. That has a downside, because it makes the national team dependent on clubs in other countries, but it also produces players who compete week in, week out at the highest club level.

The Cunill brothers, both at Atlètic Terrassa, represent the other side: players who stay in the heart of Catalan hockey and become internationals from there. Between the exporters and the stayers lies the reality of a hockey country big enough to matter and small enough to know every player.

The venues for Spain

Spain plays its pool matches in the Belfius Hockey Arena in Wavre, the new stadium that, together with the Wagener Stadion in Amstelveen, hosts the World Cup 2026. For Spain, Wavre is familiar ground: it played there against Belgium in the Pro League. The men's final is also played in Wavre, on Sunday 30 August, which means Spain could stay in Belgium for the entire tournament if it reaches the final.

Pool C and the tournament format

Spain is drawn in Pool C, together with Australia, Ireland and South Africa. On paper Australia is the favourite for first place, but Spain beat the Kookaburras earlier in the Pro League, so that status is not untouchable. Ireland and South Africa sit below Spain in the world ranking and are the teams against which Spain needs to take points.

The tournament has four pools of four countries. The top two from each pool advance to an intermediate round, after which the best of those reach the cross-over finals. For Spain that means: finishing at least second in Pool C is the first, hard task.

Scenario analysis: the road to the final

In the good scenario, Spain beats Ireland and South Africa and takes at least a draw against Australia, which can be enough for first place in the pool. That would yield a more favourable draw in the intermediate round and increase the chance of a quarter-final against a beatable opponent. From that position a semi-final is realistic, and in a semi-final anything is possible, as Paris proved.

In the likely scenario, Spain finishes second behind Australia, with wins over the two weaker pool rivals. Then, in the intermediate round and the knockout phase, a clash with a top nation such as the Netherlands, Belgium or Germany is almost certain, and the question becomes whether Spain can summon its best level on a single evening.

In the bad scenario, Spain stumbles over its own inconsistency. An unexpected dropped point against Ireland or South Africa, combined with a defeat against Australia, and the team already has to count and fear within the pool. Given the 2025-26 Pro League, that is not an unthinkable picture, and precisely for that reason the first week in Wavre is crucial.

1. Miralles's arrastre at the edge of the circle. On every Spanish penalty corner, watch Marc Miralles's run-up. His drag flick is precise and hard to read, and he hides his direction until the very last moment. When he appears to step over the ball, that is often the cue for a variation in which a teammate takes over the finish. The penalty corner is Spain's sharpest weapon, and Miralles is the first man to keep an eye on.

2. Which Cunill sets up. When Spain wins a penalty corner, look at who stands next to Miralles at the top of the circle. Brothers Pepe and Pau Cunill are both drag-flick specialists, and their presence is meant to make the goalkeeper and the first runner unsure who to commit to. The choice between Miralles and a Cunill often gives away which variation is coming.

3. Calzado in the closing minutes. Spanish matches are often decided in the final minutes, and goalkeeper Luis Calzado is at his best there. His double save against Ireland in the Olympic qualifier, first on the penalty corner and immediately on the rebound, is the kind of moment in which he can swing a match. Watch his reflexes on a late penalty corner.

4. Pulling the goalkeeper when trailing. If Spain falls behind in the closing phase, watch whether Caldas takes his goalkeeper off for an eleventh outfield player. He did it in the bronze match against India in Paris, with a final push using eleven outfield players. It is a bold gamble that fits the team's identity, and it makes those last minutes thrilling.

5. Menini as the calm point. Amid the high tempo, Joaquín Menini is the player who slows the game down when it is needed. Watch how, after winning the ball, he shields it and gives the team time to organise. The contrast between the explosive pressing and Menini's calm is the sign of the tactical maturity that Caldas has brought.

6. The young decision-makers. Keep an eye on Nicolás Álvarez and Bruno Font, the twenty-somethings who embody the changing of the guard. Álvarez decided the European Championship bronze match against France, Font brings pace and unpredictability into the circle. When one of them settles a big moment, you see exactly why Spain's generational shift is considered a success.

7. The transition after losing the ball. If Spain loses the ball in the opponent's half, don't look at the Spanish back line but at the players around the ball. Spain tries to apply pressure immediately and win the ball back quickly, before the opponent can organise. If that fails, the team drops back fast. Those first seconds after losing possession show how sharp Spain is on the day.

8. The match against Australia as a yardstick. The pool match against Australia is Spain's real test. It is the strongest pool opponent and at the same time a team that Spain has beaten in the Pro League. How Spain holds up against the Kookaburras says a lot about how far the team can go at this World Cup.

Three outcomes are open for Spain. In the best case, the team confirms in Wavre that the transition has produced not only talent but also consistency, and repeats the Paris feat of beating a great side at the right moment, deep into the tournament. In the likely case, Spain comes through the pool and runs into one of the European powerhouses in the knockout phase, where it must summon its best level on a single evening and where it could just as easily succeed as fail. In the worst case, the inconsistency of the Pro League season catches up with the team, and Spain goes out earlier than its class warrants.

Whatever happens on Sunday 30 August in Wavre, the Caldas project has already given Spanish hockey back something it had lost: the status of a team you do not want to draw. From eleventh place at the 2018 World Cup to an Olympic semi-final and European Championship bronze in five years is a remarkable resurrection. The question hanging over this World Cup is not whether Spain can be good, because it has proved that, but whether it can stay good, for two weeks, match after match. The answer to that question determines whether the successful transition also becomes a lasting one.

Official sources

• Fédération Internationale de Hockey (FIH)
• FIH world ranking
• Real Federación Española de Hockey (RFEH)
• EuroHockey Federation
• Olympics.com

Spanish media

• Marca
• AS
• Mundo Deportivo
• El Periódico
• eshockey.es (RFEH news platform)