Spain U20

There is no fixture on the calendar that carries weight the way a derby does at club level — a youth national team meets a different opponent every cycle, whichever side has cleared its own qualifying group. What follows this squad instead is the standard set by the sides above and below it in the same shirt.

La Rojita, as the age-group side is known, trains out of the Ciudad del Fútbol in Las Rozas de Madrid, the federation's own complex, opened in 2003, where the main pitch holds 1,300. Matches themselves are played wherever the tournament or friendly calendar sends the squad, since a national selection has no ground of its own to defend.

The senior team's template — red shirt, white shorts, blue socks — passes down to this age group unchanged, with an all-yellow kit kept for away fixtures.

The record the class of 1999 set has stood as the benchmark since: Spain beat Japan 4–0 in the final that year for the country's only FIFA U-20 World Cup, after finishing runner-up in 1985 and again in 2003. The women's side matched that feat in 2018, when Spain won the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup against North Korea on penalties. Below that level, the under-19s have taken the UEFA European Under-19 Championship ten times, the most recent in 2026.

Players move through La Rojita on their way somewhere else rather than staying to build a career in it, which is the nature of an age-group side — Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams both came up through the youth ranks before their names meant anything at senior level. For the current squad, the task stays the one every cycle sets: qualify, then try to add to what 1999 and 2018 already delivered.