Two of the early stars of the Premier League season will be out to show their skills to an English audience tonight, but this time David Silva and Juan Mata will be performing for Spain, not their multi-national clubs, in the friendly against England at Wembley.
Both countries qualified as group winners for Euro 2012 and this is the first warm-up match en route to the finals. Spain were the more impressive team in qualifying, being one of only two countries with a 100 per cent record (the other was Germany) and scoring at least two goals in each of their four away games.
England had a few more worries and still had to take something from their final game in Montenegro to be sure of qualification. It is difficult to believe Spain would have drawn twice with Montenegro if they had been in the same group.
Spain appear to be taking the match seriously, and their squad includes six of the Barcelona players who lined up against Manchester United in the Champions League final victory in May. The seven midfield players in the squad have won 52 major trophies between them, while the whole of the England squad have 45.
Not only does the England squad lack the same high level of achievement, it lacks strength in depth and is weakened further by the absence of first-teamers Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard. Ashley Young and Rio Ferdinand, who would be pushing for starting places at least, are also absent.
Perhaps, then, it should not be surprising that a gamble on Spain has been building this week. This may be a clash between the teams ranked first and seventh in the world, but recent results suggest the gap between them is significantly larger. Spain have won their last two major tournaments - Euro 2008 and the 2010 World Cup - while England did not qualify for the first of those and exited in tame fashion at the last 16 stage in South Africa.