The thing about uncharted waters is that they can get a bit choppy. The sandbank you didn't know was there, the sea monster which should have been marked with thar be danger on the ocean chart, the prospect of the crew mutinying.
Interestingly for all of us and challengingly for them, the Good Ship 'La Roja' is about to launch into those uncharted waters, ready to plunder, and the main hope of the Spanish is that they return home again in July with gold.
Until Vicente del Bosque's squad achieved the feat by romping to a 4-0 win over Italy in the final of Euro 2012, no international side had ever won three straight major trophies.
So, by definition, there's no guide for what to do now. No user manual. Nobody's been here before.
A fourth straight tournament; how the heck do you manage that when nobody, in the history of organised international football, has come close?
When FIFA recently asked Jurgen Klinsmann what question he'd pose to Del Bosque, if he had the chance, the United States national team coach went straight for: "How on earth do you keep the players hungry, motivated -- how do you set these astonishing standards of consistency?"
Within the game the top players and coaches understand, fully, that they have witnessed a phenomenon, one which may well not be properly appreciated by fans and media until well after La Roja's reign has ended.
I'd guess the world, outside Spain, is pretty evenly split between "I wonder if they can do it again" and "I hope they get their comeuppance this time?"
Here's my take on five key issues which immediately confront the World and European champions as they eye up the challenge in Brazil.
1. The cast list
There are footballing nations who'd give up their natural oil and gas resources and forfeit points in the next Eurovision Song Contest if they could choose between Diego Costa, Fernando Llorente, Alvaro Negredo, Fernando Torres and David Villa ahead of this World Cup.
Between them this season, they have won the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A, while Costa and Torres scored in the Champions League semifinals and Costa and Villa played in the final. In total, this quintet scored 103 goals in 2013-14.
However, it's a headache for Del Bosque.
Spain's midfield berths in the FIFA-permitted 23-man squad will be overloaded with talents, partly because that's where their ability to dominate the ball comes from but also because, given the way they have lined up in recent tournaments, it's just playing with nomenclature to declare that Cesc Fabregas, Juan Mata, David Silva, Jesus Navas or Andres Iniesta are either "definitely" midfielders or forwards.
With Pedro, La Roja's leading scorer in the last year, it looked like either one or, at best, two from Llorente, Villa, Torres and Negredo would go to Brazil.
That was because, until he foolishly attempted to pretend a hamstring injury wasn't a big deal, Costa was a stone-cold certainty to be Spain's first-choice striker.
Now it's touch and go whether he even travels, which may be a touch fortunate for the other strikers.
Del Bosque has two dilemmas.
One, does he take even a minimal risk with Costa and "hope" he'll be okay for the Holland game on June 13?
The scenario is not a million miles from that which led to the risk Del Bosque took in 2010 with Andres Iniesta, who was injured for the last third of that season, reinjured in a pre-tournament friendly and immediately injured again in the first group game defeat vs. Switzerland.
The gamble paid off then but would it again?
If he chooses to gamble this time, it may be necessary to backup Costa with two centre forwards, rather than one -- as I suspect it was going to be -- like Torres and Negredo or Torres and Villa.
Torres will get his shot at destiny on Friday in Sevilla against Bolivia. Neither Negredo nor Llorente have been picked for that squad and while Del Bosque says that nothing is definitive and that either or both may yet go to Brazil, Torres has been given one heck of a shot at goal.
Meanwhile, since getting mere minutes as a substitute against Portugal (turning that game) in the last 16 four years ago, Llorente hasn't played in a tournament fixture (nine matches). I fear his goose is cooked although I'm truly not sure why.
Negredo's plummet from unstoppable to dead slow and then stop at Manchester City also looks to have cost him dearly, notwithstanding that Del Bosque thinks he "associates" better with those around him on the pitch than Llorente. Knock downs, lay-offs, one twos -- that kind of link-work.
Torres and Villa are old school. Their age and relative goal decline mean that Del Bosque now needs to decide whether school's out for the summer. Or forever.
Guessing whether Costa makes it is a fool's game. He has the capacity to be ready for June 2, the date of Del Bosque's ultimate deadline and the Spain coach seems dedicated to giving the former Brazilian a chance of a turning up to the old country for a bit of "smash and grab" repatriation. What a story that would be.
But will his muscle tear heal? We shall see.
Deep down I think that Torres and Villa are now well-placed. They have tournament pedigree, the former has a chance to seal his place this weekend and Villa's work-rate in the Champions League final was stellar.
Speculation aside, it's a fundamental decision for the manager. If he takes an extra striker then a "midfielder" who thinks he's going will have to be left at home.
Big campaigns start well via getting original decisions spot on. The spotlight is on Del Bosque.
2. Gooooood Morning, Bom Dia, Brazil. Today your weather will be...
Okay, this isn't Anchorman and I'm not Brick Tamland, the one-and-only weatherman at KVWN, so I'll make this brief. But you should forgive Del Bosque, Iker Casillas or Xavi if you catch them doing a rain dance.
Spain found parts of last summer's Confederations Cup intolerable. Not the social protests, nor the booing; they took that as a sign of fear and respect.
No, it was the weather. When you hear people talking about "the heat in Brazil", treat it as something of a misnomer. Above all, for those not used to playing in such conditions, it's the combination of heat and humidity which is so, so punishing.
Having coped with one game in Recife in the tropical north, which kicked off mid-evening (in which they flared spectacularly but gradually drained out against Uruguay) it was the third group game, against Nigeria in Fortaleza, which did for Spain.
Del Bosque's players went out to "warm up" in the mid afternoon heat and humidity and came back in for the team talk feeling as if they'd already played the most draining match of their lives.
The deal, basically, is this. When it's hot and the humidity is high (as it will be in Manaus, Recife, Fortaleza, Natal, Salvador, Cuiaba and, to a much lesser degree, Brasilia), the body's ability to sweat and have that sweat evaporate, as part of the natural cooling system, decreases dramatically.
As a result, if the temperature is 28 degrees you have to apply a "feels like" measure. It will often not only feel like 31 or 32 degrees but the body will overheat. It can become not only debilitating but also dangerous to over-exert in such conditions.
Mental and physical tiredness arrive more quickly, decision-making and athleticism decrease proportionately, almost every player is more susceptible to cramps and the recovery time before a normal performance can be expected in the next match is far longer.
Acclimatization is the only surefire remedy, either though being born in that kind of climate and learning to live in it or being there long enough for the body to adapt.
And there's the rub. Spain have chosen a "winter" climate for their training camp in Curitiba. That's positive for daily work and won't be very different from their World Cup conditions in Potchefstroom four years ago or in Gdansk at Euro 2012. Perfect.
However, it will exacerbate the impact of what Salvador, the host city for the game vs. the Netherlands on June 13, might well be. Spain will go from evenings of 11 degrees and training days of 17 to what might be 32 and 90 percent humidity. It is an abysmal leap.
The days leading up to that Salvador match are forecast to be hot and humid while match day remains in the lap of the gods.
Thus the Del Bosque rain dance.
Generally, if it rains the temperature drops and while the actual humidity might increase, the cooling effect of the rain on the athletes and the temperature around the pitch will be beneficial to this Spanish squad which is ageing, tiring and which really didn't like last summer's experience.
Let it pour.
3. Dutch courage
One thing is sure, Holland won't try to boot Spain off the pitch as they did in the 2010 final. Louis van Gaal has had his troops together in training camps for a couple of weeks prior to Spain even gathering as a complete squad.
Van Gaal, who gave Xavi and Iniesta their club debuts while in charge at Barcelona, has at his disposal what he likes best: young bucks, full of blood, thunder and athleticism.
Several of his squad have been developed and turned into winners at Ajax by Van Gaal's declared disciple, Frank De Boer.
What the Dutch manager will want is for the match in Salvador, strategically crucial to win, to replicate what was on show when Ajax shredded Barcelona in the Champions League late last year.
Okay, Spain are NOT Barcelona. But the themes are comparable.
Ajax, when you analysed 11 vs. 11, were not nearly as high in quality nor as experienced, yet they turned Barcelona inside out.
High tempo, very vertical play, energetic pressing, forcing errors, endless stamina -- a tornado vs. a tortoise.
- Cox:
"If they aren't right then I already know we are going to have to suffer a bit more in a match."
The major task is therefore for Javier Minano, Spain's fitness coach.
The most tetchy and caustic I've seen Del Bosque over the last six years was after defeating Croatia to reach the quarterfinal of Euro 2012. His team had been lambasted in the Spanish media for the nervy 1-0 win, achieved with a last-minute goal.
He was so jolted, so irritated by the torrent of criticism that he went back to the team hotel in Gdansk and, from around 2 a.m., watched the entire match all over again.
Later that day he held an unscheduled press conference: "The trouble is that, in football terms, we've gone from poor to rich too quickly in our country and some people have forgotten realism" was his spiky message.
A major part of the thorn in the side from which Spain's media, in fact many analysts around the world, suffer is Del Bosque's happiness to play with a fourth midfielder or "false nine" instead of choosing a dedicated centre forward.
In recent years he's used Cesc, Pedro and Silva between two wide players and in the position which Villa, Torres or Negredo (and now Costa) might be expected to occupy.
Irrespective of whether observers like it or not, it has functioned well.
Del Bosque looks for the element of surprise against certain opposition, to ask questions which are hard to answer.
He looks for 'superiority' in the deep midfield area just ahead of the opposition box with the false nine dropping back to combine with midfielders and create openings or one-two "wall" passes, which can draw out and then dumbfound defenders.
By definition it's not an unknown tactic but it remains a style of play which some international sides, unused to facing it, find hard to read and cope with.
Equally, there are other opponents who will suffer from the direct, physical and aerially strong abilities of Torres, Negredo or Costa. Del Bosque needs to choose well how he alternates these choices not only between World Cup matches but within games as things ebb and flow too.
Aside from the tendency to unleash Jesus Navas (if fit) as opposition tire and games open up, or to ask Jordi Alba to sprint free beyond opponents who push up and press Spain this is Del Bosque's best "jack in the box" tactic.
Who plays "centre forward" and why will be the centre of attention before, during and after every match Spain play as they defend their hard-won World Cup.