Print login page url in node.tpl.php
Use this if you just want the URL:

&lt;?php print url('user/login'); ?&gt;


If you want to print a link:

&lt;?php print l(t('Login'), 'user/login'); ?&gt;


And in your case it would be:

&lt;?php print l('&lt;span&gt;' . t('Login') . '&lt;/span&gt;', 'user/login', array('html' =&gt; TRUE)); ?&gt;