Following today's announcement that Telefonica has decided to extend its sponsorship team of the Movistar team, manager Eusebio Unzue says that the team will be built around Alejandro Valverde and Nairo Quintana. He regrets the loss of Rui Costa whose Tour de France ambitions made it impossible to keep him on the Spanish squad.

One of the oldest teams in professional cycling will remain in the professional peloton until at least 2016 after Telefonica announced that they will continue to back the Movistar team until 2016. Hence, manager Eusebio Unzue can now make long-term plans for the team in which he has played a crucial role for more than 20 years,

Those plans are set to revolve around current stars Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde who will be at the helm of the team for the coming years. While Valverde has been one of the best Spanish cyclists for several years and so is an important front figure for the Spanish team, Quintana is one of the biggest grand tour talents that will make the team able to vie for honours in the biggest stage races for many years to come.

On today's press conference, Unzue confirmed that those two riders will form the team's basis in the coming years.

 "Valverde is one of the best Spanish riders of the last decade and represents security," he said. "Nairo represents the future and optimism and has the ability to change our sport."

This year the team has had three leaders as current world champion Rui Costa has also played a major role as captain in some of the biggest races. However, the Portuguese will join Lampre-Merida in 2014 and Unzue regretted the loss.

"He wanted to be the leader at the Tour de France," he said. "We could not guarantee him that role and he would not give up on his ambitions."

Already at the world championships, Unzue knew that Costa would be leaving the team and so he found himself with mixed emotions in the finale when two of his riders, Valverde and Costa, played a major role. Valverde was unable to follow Costa in the finale and while it was a current Movistar rider who won the race, the rainbow jersey won't be in their ranks next year.

"I had a feeling of disappointment because Alejandro missed a great opportunity, and I had to adapt as I was in the Spanish camp," he said. "However, it was still a great day for me and I am happy for Rui Costa's win, the first world championships title in our history."

This year Movistar has had a very successful season which was crowned yesterday when the team won the WorldTour team classifications. The team won 32 races and excelled in all three grand tours, taking three stage wins in the Giro and putting Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde on the Tour and Vuelta podiums respectively.

While Valverde said that he considered doing the Giro, Unzue was adamant that the Tour and Vuelta will once again be the team's main targets.

"Of course, we will bring a great team to the Vuelta," he said. "At present, we only know the course for the Giro and it is a very interesting one. The Tour? Little will change. When we know the route, we will take the interests of Telefonica into account and put together out race schedule."

"[The Tour and the Vuelta will be] our main objectives. If I had to choose, I would prefer to win the Tour but our philosophy is that every race is a target."

Movistar won the WorldTour with a 49-point advantage over Team Sky.