It is a sunny afternoon at Las Rozas, the Spanish FA’s headquarters northwest of Madrid, ahead of Spain’s friendly with Serbia. The 2024 European champions’ camp is relaxed: some players sunbathe and chat, others work on shooting drills. The atmosphere owes much to head coach Luis de la Fuente’s emphasis on dressing-room chemistry — and Chelsea left-back Marc Cucurella has become a key part of that bond.
Cucurella, speaking to The Athletic before Spain’s 3-0 win in Villarreal, says the national team provides a reset after a difficult spell at club level. Chelsea have won only four of their last 12 matches and lost six, including four consecutive defeats and an 8-2 aggregate exit to Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League. That loss, he admits, stung.
“We lacked experience,” Cucurella says of the PSG tie. For many players it was their first time in a match of that calibre, and mistakes proved costly. He recalled how, late in the first leg, Chelsea were 3-2 down with five minutes to go — a scenario that, with composure, might have left them still in the tie. Instead, errors and a lack of structure allowed PSG to seize control. “You can always make a mistake, but we should have handled it better,” he adds.
Cucurella is now in his fourth season at Chelsea after joining from Brighton following the club’s 2022 takeover. That tenure positions him to assess the BlueCo project and the current malaise. He understands the club’s policy of signing young talent and planning for the future, but warns that relying solely on youth complicates immediate ambitions. “We have a good core of players. The foundations are there. But to fight for major trophies, you need more. Signing young players only might complicate achieving those goals,” he says. Young players will gain experience in time, he concedes, but Chelsea need balance.
Managerial instability has compounded the problem. Enzo Maresca, who led Chelsea to the Club World Cup final victory in July, was out of a job within six months. Liam Rosenior replaced him in January. Cucurella defends Maresca’s work, saying the squad was more stable under the Italian because they had worked together for 18 months and understood his systems. “In our last months with Maresca, we played almost by heart. If we changed the system, we knew what we had to do,” he notes. That continuity, he believes, mattered.
Asked whether Maresca should have left, Cucurella is blunt: he would not have made that decision, and thinks the club should have waited until the end of the season to make such a change. The quick turnover — caretaker, then a new manager with different ideas and limited time to train them — has contributed to instability. Rosenior, he says, is a good person who handles the group well, but the schedule (with games every three days) leaves little time on the training ground to properly instil new concepts.
To cope, the squad has sought unity through rituals such as their centre-circle pre-match huddle, an idea endorsed by backroom staff to project team strength. Cucurella describes it as a players’ decision following guidance from a coach who also helps with mental preparation. He defended the practice as part of building a cohesive unit, though the moment drew controversy when referee Paul Tierney stood in the centre of the huddle before a game against Newcastle. Cucurella called Tierney’s action “a lack of respect” and said he believed the referee “wanted to have his moment,” though he declined to elaborate.
Cucurella’s standing at Chelsea has changed markedly since he arrived: from a misfit to a player the club sees as part of its long-term plan, signing a contract extension until 2028 last summer. The same transformation has happened with Spain. Initially called up to the 2024 European Championship due to injuries to other left-backs, he became a starter and helped Spain win the tournament. He is now the first-choice left-back ahead of this summer’s World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
He is realistic about Spain’s prospects but confident: “Yes, I think so,” he says when asked if Spain are favourites. “We have earned the right to have people believe in us.” De la Fuente’s message is to stay true to the team’s strengths and keep working on basics that delivered European success.
Cucurella names England as a top rival at the World Cup and praises Thomas Tuchel’s ability to add tactical structure to a talented squad — Tuchel was Cucurella’s first Chelsea manager. He also singles out attackers he finds difficult to defend against, including Chelsea team-mate Cole Palmer, Michael Olise, Ousmane Dembélé and the quick full-back Jeremie Frimpong.
Back at Chelsea, results and questions around players such as Enzo Fernandez have increased unease, but Cucurella focuses on the lessons from high-profile defeats. He stresses the need for experience in big moments and more time to build coherent processes. “We are still a bit away from the top level,” he says, calling for balance between youth and seasoned heads and for the stability that comes from time and trust in a project.