Watching Spain play Brazil on Sunday in the quarter-finals of the Under-20 World Cup in Colombia was like watching two teams play a different game. There were Spain, in the familiar 4-3-3, the ball being moved at pace, holding possession, and there were Brazil, huffing and puffing and somehow getting away with it thanks to exceptional individual performances. The game finished 2-2 after extra-time, and Brazil won on penalties.

It would be misleading to paint the result as a great injustice, although Spain certainly had the better of it, but equally it would be negligent not to report just how superior, how much more sophisticated, Spain seemed. Brazil may have won the battle but the suspicion is that if these sides were to meet again, all grown up, at the 2018 World Cup, Spain would prevail; individuals are unreliable; a team system far less so. The full-backs Hugo Mallo and Carles Planas were neat and composed. Isco, at the front of midfield, distributed superbly. Chelsea's Oriol Romeu was imposing yet skilful in front of the back four. Rodrigo of Bolton was intelligent in his movement and scored a header with the stumbling elan of Kevin Davies. The quality of Sergio Canales, used on the right, is well known.

They've gone out, but Spain were excellent in this tournament, overcoming a slight defensive wobble to thrash Costa Rica, beating Ecuador, hammering Australia and overcoming South Korea on penalties before the meeting with Brazil. There will be concern that they failed to see off either opponent in the knockout rounds without recourse to penalties, but if they, as the former Almería coach Juanma Lillo demanded they should, consider the process and not the result, there must be widespread satisfaction.

Spain's defeat came shortly after a thrilling first leg of the Super Cup final, a game that, in terms of quality and intensity, far outstripped anything seen so far in the Premier League this season. Given their Under-19 side (who won this summer's European Championship in Romania) and Under-21 side (who became European champions in Denmark in June), you begin to wonder when it will stop. After years of underachievement – not only did Spain not win a national title between 1964 and 2008 but there was only one Spanish success in the European Cup/Champions League between 1966 and 1998 – Spain's dynasty could last a decade and more.

Of course, 10 years ago we were saying much the same, only about France. Although their clubs never threatened to dominate as Barcelona have over the past four seasons, their best players were at the best clubs across Europe while at national level France had become only the second team (after West Germany of 1972 and 1974) to hold both the World Cup and European Championship (Spain are the third). The Clairefontaine academy and those at French clubs that followed the same model, were hailed as the best in the world, something backed up by success at youth level.

But France, as holders, were eliminated from the 2002 World Cup in the group stage and, although there was a brief raging against the dying of the light in the 2006 World Cup (when, realistically, they played well only in the quarter-final against Brazil and were runners-up to Italy), they have underwhelmed at national level ever since. In 2002 there were scandalous reports of off-the-field activities (it's worth asking why, against Uruguay, the usually equitable Thierry Henry was so frustrated he was sent off for the only time in his international career) and in 2010, there was the notorious strike action against Raymond Domenech and his coaching staff.

So what caused the decline? Domenech never seemed an easy fit for the job. The transition from a great generation to the next is never easy. There was, fairly evidently, a loss of hunger from the older, successful generation, and a sense of entitlement from younger players, born into an environment in which winning was the norm. But there was something also about the way the game was played that raised questions about Clairefontaine, something Matt Spiro explains in detail in issue two of The Blizzard.

There were suggestions that players were being picked for physical rather than technical qualities. The 5ft 7in Marvin Martin, who has impressed recently for the senior side, failed to get into Clairefontaine because he failed one test: the x-ray that predicts growth. As Spiro makes clear, it is slightly more complex than that, and Clairefontaine actually seems more open to small technical players than many of the club academies, but the whole race row that erupted in April had its roots in a discussion over whether French youth football was too focused on physicality. And although France have failed to reach the finals of three successive European Under-21 Championships, the performance of the Under-20 side in reaching the semi-finals of this World Cup suggests not too much is amiss (even if they were thumped 4-1 by Colombia in their opening game).

Still, the 5ft 7in detail resonates, given that is the height of Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta, David Silva and Lionel Messi, the players who have guided Spain and/or Barcelona to world domination. Francisco Filho, the coach who was instrumental in establishing Clairefontaine before moving to Manchester United in 2001, is adamant that La Masia, the training facility that is the heart of Barcelona's youth system, follows similar principles to the French academies: drilling technique, playing constant small-sided games, having players train constantly with the ball rather than running laps or shuttles or working in the gym. The difference seems to be that it, and the Spanish game in general, is more prepared to give smaller players their chance. Seven of Spain's starting XI against Brazil in the Under-20 quarter-final were under 6ft.

It is a simplistic theory, but perhaps, particularly at youth level, smaller players have to think more than their larger opponents, and so they develop football intelligence earlier. (England, I note with a shudder, had the tallest squad at the Under-20 World Cup). Since the heyday of Clairefontaine, the offside rule has been radically liberalised, something that has had the effect of stretching the effective playing area from around 35-40 yards to around 60, creating more space and allowing smaller players to play. It could be that French football, quite aside from issues of attitude, was simply bypassed by the evolution of the game.

Yet the suspicion is that France were never this dominant. Italy's senior side beat Spain last week, their third recent defeat in friendlies, but they have lost only two competitive games in four years. In three years the only thing to have stopped Barcelona has been a volcano. Brazil beat this Under-20 side because their centre-forward Henrique, the left-sided midfielder Oscar and the goalkeeper Gabriel all had exceptional games. Their system, though, looked old-fashioned, the diamond midfield vulnerable to width – both of Spain's goals came from crosses from the full-backs.

So what can stop Spain? Perhaps the hunger will fade, and the friendly defeats – 2-1 to Italy, 4-0 in Portugal and 4-1 in Argentina – are the first signs of that. Perhaps the next generation is not quite as gifted and mentally tough as this one (although the early signs suggest it may be). Perhaps the transition from one generation to the next will be mismanaged. Perhaps other sides will start aping their methods – Nigeria and Colombia, in this tournament, both played with a centre-forward who dropped off, wingers who cut in and a clear playmaker in midfield (their departure, along with Spain's, in the quarter-finals probably cost the tournament its best three sides). Or perhaps, somebody, somewhere, will think up a way of overcoming tiki-taka.

For now, though, there seems little reason why Spain's future should not be as bright as its present.