Fermín López and Dani Olmo are fighting for the playmaker role at Barcelona and with Spain. But each man's standing shifts depending on which coach picks the team.
According to Sport, both Hansi Flick and Luis de la Fuente build from a 4-3-3, with a few variations, and both deploy a playmaker. That position belongs to Olmo and López.
The opening weeks with the Catalan club, and the international break covering four UEFA Nations League matches, laid bare how differently the two coaches see things.
Fermín López returned to the Spain squad as a regular starter at Barcelona, having leapfrogged Dani Olmo.
López has started five matches to Olmo's three under Flick this season. The numbers favour him too. Fermín has scored four goals and set up two more, while Olmo is still chasing his first goal of the campaign in a Barcelona shirt despite laying on three assists.
Game time tells the same story. López has played 466 minutes, Olmo 342, a gap of 124 minutes.
With Spain, the picture flips entirely. Fermín may be the main playmaker at Barcelona, but that role still belongs to Olmo for the national team, just as it did at the last World Cup in Fermín's absence.
Under de la Fuente, Olmo started three of the four matches. He sat out only the 4-1 thrashing of Croatia, where Fermín got the nod, his sole start of this Nations League campaign.
At Wembley, Fermín stayed on the bench for the full 90. He came on against the Czech Republic for Olmo on 67 minutes, then replaced Olmo again against Croatia on 71 minutes.
Olmo, meanwhile, provided three assists in four matches and clocked 220 minutes over the break. Fermín, who teed up Lamine Yamal to open the floodgates against Croatia, managed just 91. That leaves him 129 minutes short, the exact mirror image of life at Barcelona.
Both now head back to Barcelona for the return of La Liga and the Champions League.
October brings a packed and punishing schedule, and Flick will have no choice but to rotate to keep his squad fresh.
Which man does he turn to for the matches nobody wants to miss, the trip to the Parc des Princes or the Clásico on 25 October at the Spotify Camp Nou?
Stick with his first-choice XI and Fermín holds the edge. But Olmo is the one riding the greater momentum into this phase after the international break.