It is a sunny afternoon at Las Rozas, the Spanish FA’s headquarters northwest of Madrid, before their friendly against Serbia last Friday.
Spain's training session has just finished. A handful of Luis de la Fuente's players, including Martin Zubimendi, Pedri and goalkeeper David Raya, are sunbathing on the pitch while chatting. Others, such as Crystal Palace's Yeremy Pino and Osasuna's national-team debutant Victor Munoz, work on shooting drills.
The 2024 European champions' camp is a happy place. That is in large part thanks to head coach De la Fuente's obsession with creating a strong bond among his players and prioritising dressing-room chemistry - with Chelsea left-back Marc Cucurella being key to creating that harmony.
"Coming to the national team is a breath of fresh air for everyone," Cucurella tells The Athletic in an exclusive interview, conducted before a 3-0 win against Serbia in Villarreal. "Sometimes it feels like the games we have to play are not even the most important thing - you just want to spend time with these people. We have created such strong relationships that the week passes by before you can even realise."
For Cucurella, though, there is an added need to reset with Spain.
Chelsea's recent form has been difficult for the 27-year-old to process - with Liam Rosenior's side having won only four of their past 12 games, while losing six times. They have been beaten in each of their past four, including by a three-goal margin in both legs of their Champions League round of 16 tie against Paris Saint-Germain.
"Sometimes, if you're in good form, an international break can kill your momentum a bit," Cucurella says. "But this one will do us (Chelsea) well at club level."
Getting outclassed by PSG - they suffered an 8-2 aggregate defeat to Luis Enrique's reigning European champions - was the one that really stung.
"We lacked experience," Cucurella says. "For a lot of players, it was the first time playing a match of that calibre, and we paid the price.
"You can always make a mistake, but we should have handled it better. There was a return game to play, and if you keep a cool head, you go back to London with a 3-2 defeat (the score with five minutes left of normal time in the first leg) and anything can happen. We made a mistake, tried to attack without a clear structure and then PSG took the chance and proved they have that cutting edge."
Cucurella is a respected voice in the Chelsea dressing room. This is his fourth season with them, joining from Brighton & Hove Albion after the May 2022 takeover by Todd Boehly and the Clearlake Capital consortium. It puts him in a privileged position to assess the state of the BlueCo project.
There is little optimism around the west London club at present - with the woe over their Champions League exit compounded by Enzo Fernandez casting doubt on his Chelsea future after that PSG defeat. Cucurella does not want to speak about his team-mate's situation but chooses instead to focus on what happened in that tie.
"Results like that are always hard to take," Cucurella says. "You are fighting and training every day only to realise, at the very end, that when games matter, we are still a bit away from the top level.
"I understand this is part of the club's policy, and that they want to take this direction - signing young players and looking to the future. But, for all of us who are still here and want to win big things, moments like this make you feel discouraged.
"We have a good core of players. The foundations are there. But to fight for major trophies such as the Premier League or the Champions League, you need more. Signing young players only might complicate achieving those goals. Against PSG, we lacked players that had gone through situations like that.
"You need time as well, and I know the young players are the ones that will have the experience in the future. But you need to find the balance between both worlds."
On top of all that, there has been this season's managerial drama: with Enzo Maresca going from overseeing a Club World Cup final victory in July to being out of a job within six months, before Rosenior's arrival as his replacement in January. Cucurella defends the job done so far by the former Strasbourg coach.
"Liam is a very good person and has been great at handling the group, the characters," he says. "He likes to stay close to us and his football ideas are good, but we don't have the time to train them.
"We train on (playing in) competitive games, because we play every three days and that leaves you with no time to work on the training ground. In this context, it is normal that your plans sometimes don't work out, and then we go through difficult moments.
"With Enzo Maresca in charge, we were more stable, because we worked together for 18 months. If you look at our first pre-season with him (Chelsea won only once in six warm-up friendlies, losing three), there were doubts. You need a process for every player to understand what we need to do. In our last months with Maresca, we played almost by heart. If we changed the system, we knew what we had to do. You need that time.
"Look at Arsenal now, who are fighting for every trophy. They've been with (Mikel) Arteta for almost seven years and they have not won much. But that trust in the project gives rewards."
Maresca's exit just after New Year was a turning point in the BlueCo project, but also in the Chelsea dressing room. Cucurella says the Italian was "the most important" of the six permanent managers he has worked under at Stamford Bridge.
"We knew what Maresca wanted from us," he says. "Winning a title like the Club World Cup (beating PSG 3-0 in the final) also helps, strengthens the bond, and you create great relationships during the celebrations. When a manager gives you that confidence and offers you a platform to fight for titles, you'd die for him.
"The moment Maresca left, it had a big impact on us. These are decisions taken by the club. If you asked me, I would not have made this decision. To make a change like that, the best thing is to wait until the end of the season. You would give everyone, the players and the new manager, time to get ready, have a full pre-season…
"The instability around the club comes from this, in a nutshell. We had a caretaker (former under-21s coach Calum McFarlane) first, then a new manager, with new ideas and no time to work on them. It is what it is."
The Chelsea squad have had to look for new ways to stay focused and united - and one of those has been their now-infamous pre-match huddle in the centre circle. Cucurella says it was an idea from the backroom staff, intended to project the idea of a strong team.
"It is a thing that all the players decided to do before the games, following the advice from a coach," he says. "We have a coach in the backroom staff that helps us to be better from the mental side, too. As we lack profiles of experienced players, he gives us tips to project the image of a better team."
On referee Paul Tierney finding himself in the centre of their pre-match huddle before the recent game against Newcastle United, Cucurella says: "I prefer not to speak. To me, it was a lack of respect. He could have come and told us, 'Look, you cannot do that for this reason'. But instead, he came and stayed in the middle. I don't want to speak more about it, honestly. I did not understand it. I believed he wanted to have his moment."
Cucurella's frustration with the situation at Chelsea reflects a player who has gone from a misfit at Stamford Bridge to a crucial part of the club's long-term future - last summer, he signed a contract extension until 2028.
A similar thing has happened with the national team. Cucurella made the squad for the 2024 European Championship due to injuries to other left-backs, with Valencia's Jose Luis Gaya and Alejandro Balde of Barcelona both sidelined.
In a matter of weeks, he went from an emergency call-up to being among De la Fuente's starting players, and then became one of the biggest names in a victorious campaign in Germany. He is now the undisputed first-choice in his position ahead of this summer's World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
"It's been so nice to live this process," Cucurella says. "I am thrilled to be in every single squad list. It is not easy to be here - the talent we have is unreal - and seeing this path, arriving as a prospect and now being a trusted part of the team, makes me feel proud."
He is brutally honest when asked if Spain are favourites to win this year's World Cup, where they will face Uruguay, Saudi Arabia and tournament debutants Cape Verde in the group stage.
"Yes, I think so," he replies. "We have earned the right to have people believe in us. We were a bit overlooked at the last Euros. The team is full of hope for the World Cup now. De la Fuente tells us to stay true to ourselves, to trust in our abilities and keep working on the basics that made us European champions."
He sees England as one of their toughest rivals and values the work done by their new head coach Thomas Tuchel, his first Chelsea manager: "They have always had a great squad, and now Tuchel will give them a bit of a better tactical structure. We have seen the good work he did at PSG and Chelsea. England will be a team to keep a close eye on.
"There's a lot of talent at the World Cup. The players I don't like to defend against? I would say the likes of (England forward and Chelsea team-mate) Cole Palmer, Michael Olise or Ousmane Dembele (both of France). Those have been some of the toughest attackers I've had to face. Jeremie Frimpong (Liverpool's Netherlands full-back), too. He is so quick!
"Everyone speaks so highly of what it means to be at a World Cup. I just can't wait to be part of one."
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