page_title: History of the Spain national football team
section_title: Beginnings and early success
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Spain national football team / Beginnings and early success
caption_attribution_description: English: Spanish national team which played against Belgium at the 1920 Summer Olympics. Line up: José María Belauste (did not play), Domingo Gómez-Acedo, Ricardo Zamora, Juan Artola, Patricio Arabolaza, Pichichi, Mariano Arrate, Ramón Eguiazábal, Joaquín Vázquez, Agustín Sancho, Paco Bru (coach), Manuel Lemmel (assistant coach), Pedro Vallana and Francisco Pagaza. Español: Selección de fútbol de España que se enfrentó a Bélgica en los Juegos Olímpicos de Amberes 1920, en el segundo partido de su historia. Forman de pie: José María Belauste (de paisano, no jugó), Domingo Gómez-Acedo, Ricardo Zamora, Juan Artola, Patricio Arabolaza, Pichichi, Mariano Arrate, Ramón Eguiazábal, Joaquín Vázquez, Agustín Sancho y Paco Bru (seleccionador). Agachados: Manuel Lemmel (ayudante técnico), Pedro Vallana y Francisco Pagaza.
context_page_description: The history of the Spain national football team dates back to the team's formation and first ever international match in 1920. The Spain national football team has experienced a number of successes, most notably their victory at the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
context_section_description: The first Spain national football team was constituted in 1920, with the main objective of finding a team that would represent Spain at the Summer Olympics held in Belgium in that same year.
  Spain made their much anticipated debut at the tournament on 28 August 1920 against the national team of Denmark (runners-up in the last two previous Olympic tournament). The match took place at the Stade Joseph Marien in Brussels. The Spanish won that match by a scoreline of 1–0 thanks to a goal from Patricio Arabolaza, who thus became Spain's first international goalscorer. This match would also make Spain, at that time, the 28th nation to play a football match. In their next match stage, Spain were set to play their next game against the hosts Belgium; in that match, Spain could not come up with the victory and lost 1–3.
  Hosts Belgium ended up winning the tournament after the Czechoslovakians were disqualified for leaving the pitch in the middle of the final game, thus Spain and another three national teams were giving the chance to play a small consolation tournament where the winner would win either the silver or bronze medal. Their first match in this new "quarter-finals" was played against Sweden in which the Spanish came from a goal behind to win 2–1 at the very end. José María Belauste and Domingo Acedo were the scores of that game. The following match was played against Italy. Félix Sesúmaga scored the two fabulous goals that would give the Spanish a 2–0, eliminating the Italians and giving them the victory to send them to the semi-finals of the tournament (Until UEFA Euro 2012, this had only been the only time Spain had beaten Italy in an official match). The final four teams were Spain, the Netherlands, France and Czechoslovakia. But only the Netherlands advance to final match against Spain due to France not showing up and the Czechs being disqualified previously. In the final match, Spain defeated the Dutch 3–1 with two goals from Félix Sesúmaga and one from Pichichi. With this, Spain won the silver medal at the Olympics and their first international silverware at any tournament.
  The medalist at that Olympic tournament were: Domingo Gómez-Acedo, Patricio Arabolaza, Mariano Arrate, Juan Artola, Joaquín Vázquez, José María Belauste, Sabino Bilbao, Ramón Eguiazábal, Moncho, Ricardo Zamora, Silverio Izaguirre, Pichichi, Luis Otero, Francisco Pagazaurtundúa, Josep Samitier, Agustín Sancho, Félix Sesúmaga and Pedro Vallana with the coach at that time Paco Bru.
  Although it was a very successful event for the national team, it would take many years later to achieve that success again.
caption: The Spanish squad that played at the 1920 Summer Olympics.
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