The Spanish national football team represents Spain in international football and is controlled by the Royal Spanish Football Federation. The Spanish side is commonly referred to as La Furia Roja (The Red Fury).[6] Spain is the current European champion, having won the UEFA European Championship in 2008. Spain also won the European Nations' Cup in 1964 and reached the UEFA Euro 1984 Final. Spain has qualified for the FIFA World Cup 12 times, reaching fourth place in the 1950 tournament.

In July 2008, Spain rose to the top of the FIFA World Ranking for the first time in its history, becoming the sixth nation, and the first who has never won the World Cup, to top this ranking. Between November 2006 and June 2009, Spain went undefeated for a record tying 35 consecutive matches —record shared with Brazil— including a record 15-game winning streak. Luis Aragonés left the manager's role after the Euro 2008 success, and was replaced by Vicente del Bosque.[11] 2008 saw David Villa score 12 goals in 15 games, breaking the Spanish record of 10 goals in one year held by Raúl since 1999.[12] On 11 February 2009, David Villa broke another Spanish record as his 36th-minute goal saw him become the first Spanish player to score in six consecutive games.[13] Spain began its 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification campaign with six successive wins, and went into the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup as one of the favourites. By the start of the tournament, Del Bosque's had ten consecutive wins, making him the first international manager to do so from his debut, breaking Joao Saldanha's record, held since 1969, of nine consecutive wins with Brazil. Spain won all three of its matches at the group stage, the 5–0 win over New Zealand including a Fernando Torres hat-trick that is the earliest and fastest hat-trick in the tournament's history. With further wins over Iraq (1–0) and South Africa (2–0) they earned not only qualification for the semifinals, but also obtained the world record for 15 consecutive wins and tied the record of 35 consecutive unbeaten games (with Brazil). On 24 June 2009, Spain's undefeated record ended when the United States beat Spain 2-0 in the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup semi-finals which sent Spain to the third place match. This was Spain's first defeat since 2006. Spain defeated hosts South Africa 3–2 after extra time in the 3rd-place playoff.[14] On 9 September 2009, Spain secured its place at the 2010 World Cup finals after beating Estonia 3–0 in Mérida.[15] Spain went on to record a perfect World Cup qualifying record with 10 wins out of 10 in Group 5, finishing with a 5–2 victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina on 14 October 2009.[16] The Spaniards will enter the 2010 World Cup as second place in the world rankings..