Hi this is Martin from Backpage. You're used to hearing Graham Hunter asking the questions in the big interview, but you're about to hear an episode from another podcast and this time he's on the receiving end. This is from Between the Lines, a podcast produced by Backpage that tells the stories behind the great sports writing. This one features Neil interviewing Graham about his book Spain, The Inside Story of La Rocha's Historic Treble.

If you like this, there are lots of episodes to catch up on, including interviews with Simon Cooper, David Winner, Rory Smith and many more.

Search for Between the Lines on your podcast app and look for the green logo.

From Backpage, I'm Neil White and this is Between the Lines, a podcast that tells the stories behind great sports writing.

In 2012 Backpage, that's the two of us who produced these podcasts, published Spain, the inside story of

Larocher's historic Tribble.

It was the second time we'd worked with Graham Hunter, and today we also produced his podcast,

the big interview, some of you might listen to that

back then we were all coming off the back of his award-winning first book on

FC Barcelona for his follow-up Graham reflected on the unique access he had had to the Spain national team at three consecutive

tournaments they had won, Euro 2008 and 2012 and the 2010 World Cup.

As Gerard Pekay says on the cover of this book, Graham was with the team every step of the way.

On top of that, he went back to carry out new interviews with key players, opponents, coaches and

staff members to bring to life a streak unmatched in the history of international football.

The structure of the book is a huge part of its success.

Around two profiles of the coaches, Louis Aragoness and Dalbosky,

and chapters on key components of the team's success such as the Spanish

FAA's development strategy and the winning mentality that this group of players

acquired at an early age, the spine of the story are three weighty day by day diaries from each tournament.

Reading these for the first time as Graham filed the chapters, I was transported back to these tournaments

I had watched on television, except this time I had behind the scenes access

and my guides were Marco Cenna or Fernando Torres

...