When it comes to Spanish sevens, history reminds us that the law of unintended consequences is as likely to prevail as their own best-laid plans. 

With Valladolid the next leg on the HSBC SVNS World Championship series and a Spanish men’s team that are ripping it up right now — winning the bronze medal in Hong Kong in April beating New Zealand, Australia and South Africa in the process — Los Leones have designs on winning a first-ever HSBC SVNS tournament, in front of a home crowd. 

But they’ll need to overcome a track record that stands in the way of their goals.

In 2016, an experienced but aging Spanish side set out to qualify for the World Series, a realistic ambition which they fell short of achieving, only to succeed instead in the far tougher task of qualifying for rugby sevens’ maiden Olympic Games appearance in Rio in 2016. 

Then, in 2024, they had their sights on qualifying for the Paris Olympics — but missed out. A few months later, they reached the final of the HSBC SVNS opener in Dubai for the first time, en route to a 3rd place finish on that season’s HSBC SVNS Series – their best-ever finish by some distance. 

With key 2016 player Francisco ‘Paco’ Hernandez now head coach, it’s no surprise Spain have been shaped by previous disappointments, and the unintended consequent successes that followed. 

“It is true that success is closer than you think sometimes and at other times it’s further away,” Hernandez said. “Because everything has to go perfectly to win [a sevens tournament]. 

“In 2016, the team almost had depression after losing in Hong Kong. We fought between ourselves about the best way to train because everyone saw the game in different ways. So we had a lot of troubles as a group. But, two months later we qualified for the Olympics.”

Spain’s achievement in winning that last-chance saloon repechage tournament 10 years ago came against all rugby logic. 

Spain had not competed on any leg of the World Series for two years and amongst the competition up in Monaco were a trio of core teams in Samoa, Canada and Russia, as well as the rising powers of Ireland and Germany, and Hong Kong, who had beaten Spain in the World Series qualifier. 

Samoa had even selected almost the same squad for the repechage that had won the Paris leg of the World Series a month earlier. 

And, indeed, it was the Samoans who Spain met in that famous final. Hernandez, who was playing scrum-half, was central to their success, scoring Spain’s second try as they won 22-19 with last-gasp touchdown from Ignacio Martin.

“I don’t think we would have won that match if we hadn’t had those arguments,” Hernandez reflects. 

“It was the right way for us. It helped us to realign as a team and get ready for the tournament. Before that day, I had never cried because of a rugby match but I cried at the final whistle in Monaco.”

After having only six weeks to prepare for Rio, Spain went on to lose all three of their matches at the Olympic Games. But their Olympic journey had reinvigorated an aging group and they stormed back on to the World Series at the following year’s qualifier in Hong Kong. 

Hernandez played on for Spain until 2020 before moving to Panama to work as an electrical engineer in the solar industry. An unexpected call in 2023 brought him back into the Spanish sevens fold.

“I was asked if I could join the team by the Spanish federation and I said I could help out for maybe a week as I was in between projects in Panama. I hadn’t understood: they said ‘no, it’s to be the head coach’.”

Hernandez was back, taking over from his former captain and friend Pablo Feijoo, who had coached the team since 2016. 

His engineering mind quickly got to work and he started a drive to reorganise the whole programme. “We changed everything when I become the head coach.

“We moved everyone to Malaga, firstly, and I created a bigger staff to help develop the team. 

“The first thing we were all committed to was qualifying for the Olympic Games in Paris and the mindset of the players changed. We persuaded the players that being a professional was not just for one hour a day but 24/7.”

The changes might not have paid off in time for Paris but by December of 2024 it had moved the needle significantly for the Spanish sevens team to make the final of the opening leg of the HSBC SVNS Series in the Dubai desert, where they lost to Fiji. 

They went on to pick up bronze medal finishes in Perth and Vancouver and posted two further semi-final runs to finish third in the table – a result no-one had seen coming a year before when they finished 10th, narrowly avoiding relegation.

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In 2026, they are tracking well again, having won silver in Vancouver and bronze in Hong Kong. But Spain’s success is not only built on a new mindset. The growth in community rugby in Spain has led to age-grade success at U18s and U20s level meaning the quality of players coming through is at an all-time high. 

“Spanish players are much better now than when I was younger and that means we have much more competition,” Hernandez says.

Spain are also bigger. Where once they had seven fast and skilful players trying to find ways around opponents, they now have Tobias Sainz-Trapaga, Manu Moreno and Jeremy Trevithick, who have the size to go right through teams should they wish. 

Yet Spain’s traditional style of dominating possession forged when Hernandez was a player, still runs true today, and it’s proved to be their point of difference. 

“When you talk to the players and coaches from other teams they are always complaining because we can keep the ball for so long,” Hernandez says.

“I also think the pressure we put on in defence is probably one of our main strengths, and something we have really worked on.”

Of the many brilliant weekends of sevens that Spain have put together over the last two seasons, they still haven’t delivered that perfect weekend and won a leg in HSBC SVNS. 

But with Valladolid being a city which sustains two top tier 15-a-side rugby clubs in El Salvador and Valladolid RAC, they won’t be short on fervent local fans supporting Los Leones at the Estadio José Zorrilla. 

It would be the perfect time to take that next step and finish on the top step of the podium.