Five facts on Spain's golden era

Five facts on Spain's reign as the world's number one team that ended Tuesday when the defending champions lost 2-0 to Chile and went out of the World Cup:

+ Coached by the late unorthodox Luis Aragones Spain announced themselves as the new force in world football by going unbeaten through the 2008 European Championships and ended a 44-year wait for a major trophy.

+ Went on a record 35 match unbeaten run -- including a record 15 successive wins -- from 2006 to 2009 ended by the United States in the Confederation Cup in South Africa.

+ With Vicente del Bosque in charge, Spain returned to South Africa in 2010 and despite an opening 1-0 defeat to Switzerland went on to become the only team apart from Brazil to win the World Cup outside their home continent.

+ In 2012 Spain became the first side to successfully defend the European Championship title with a 4-0 hammering of Italy in the final.

+ Spain's emergence as the footballing superpower was in parallel with the dominance of Barcelona on the European stage using the tiki-taka passing game. Aragones and del Bosque, a former coach of Real Madrid, based their teams round Barcelona playmaker Xavi. As Barcelona have declined so have Spain.

-- (c) Copyright AFP 2014-06-19

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