Author: martin

Running right alongside Brazil 2014, this is my day-by-day story of how Spain won the last World Cup. You can catch up on previous posts.

These stories are from Spain: The Inside Story of La Roja’s Historic Treble, by Graham Hunter

—

Before the pre-match team talks, and the studying of the tactical charts on the dressing-room wall, Pepe Reina questioned Puyol about a move via which, just over a year previously, he scored for Barcelona in a 6-2 win at Real Madrid. Using the magnetic pieces on the white board, Puyol shows Reina the concept and the practice.

By half-time in Durban the Catalan, who thought injury was going to ensure he watched this match from the stands, has noticed that Germany appear to be marking zonally and his path into the penalty box at set plays is almost unencumbered. Spain have so far played a couple of corners short, put one in looking for Capdevila, but nothing for Puyol. The Barça captain has,however, missed an easy scoring chance with a diving header which Iniesta puts on a plate for him.

Before they are even off the pitch at half-time, the centre-half has Xavi, who delivered the corner at the Santiago Bernabéu from which Puyol scored, by the arm and is instructing him.

“Let’s use that move from the 6-2 win again. I’ll speak to Ramos, Capdevila and Villa, you just put the ball on the penalty spot for me and we will see how they cope.”

Then, with 17 minutes left, Iniesta wins a corner on the Spanish left. I am at the mouth of the transport tunnel, right in line with the corner flag. As Xavi walks over to take the corner and settles the ball, I am aware of a little old lady, not in official uniform, who has materialised at my elbow without me noticing. She is diminutive, so I have to lean down a bit to hear her.

“How is the game going?”

“Well, it’s pretty tense and pretty interesting,” I reply. “We just need…”

I look up as I speak and Xavi appears to have used those four or five seconds to erect some sort of rigging so that he can dangle the football precisely where Puyol wants it.

Puyol, this battered, brilliant Catalan warrior filmed a television promotion with me back in Potch. He sits and stares stone-faced down the lens of the camera, holding up a rugby ball.

“They tell me this is rugby country. Well, I don’t know anything about rugby.”

He throws the oval ball out of shot to his right as a football is thrown to him from his left and he catches it.

“But I do know about football.”

This is where he proves it. Villa has been occupying Neuer on the line. For a split second, the keeper puts all his attention into shoving him violently with both hands and there is now no question of Neuer getting out to punch the corner. There is a little triangle of players occupying German markers: Ramos to the left, tying up Klose, Piqué more or less static on the penalty spot and Capdevila to the right. The arc of the ball’s movement is taking it towards Piqué, but as Sami Khedira bunches up every muscle to make the jump of his life, a dark shadow falls over the land. Puyol soars over them all, Michael Jordan-style, and crashes the best, most powerful header I have ever seen past Neuer.

Back by the tunnel I am finishing my conversation with the little old lady: “… we just need a goal.” But my fairy godmother has vanished by the time Spain celebrate wildly and Puyol, carrying four of his team-mates on his shoulders, clenches a fist and wears an expression which says: Let’s not make too much of a fuss of this … back to work now.

There is bedlam on the pitch after the final whistle and it continues into the dressing room, where Puyol immediately continues physio with Raúl Martínez on one of the massage tables. There remains quite an important game to be played.

The great tenor, Placido Domingo, bursts in and adapts Y Viva Espana! to end not with Espana por favor! but Espana campeon!

Dona Sofía, the wife of King Juan Carlos, who is absent through illness, enters the dressing room. It’s immediately evident that it’s a while since she’s played football for the royal household; a while since she’s been in a dressing room.

Unchaperoned, she makes for the showers, is pointed down the corridor, and then propelled around the corner, where she comes face-to-face with her all-conquering football team and does a comic double-take.

Lacking a master of ceremonies, she starts clapping them … and they all start clapping right back. Amidst the furore of applause, Joan Capdevila starts a manic little Riverdance of his own, in the corner. Sofía takes herself around the players, one by one, shaking hands as various players turn into royal couriers, desperately kicking or swiping boots, bottles, jockstraps out from under her before she trips over them and this becomes a diplomatic incident. This is a likelihood which increases when Carles Puyol, aware that he has been missing something, bursts into the room just as the Queen of Spain is about to make her speech. Sporting only a towel, he is a sitting duck for his team-mates, who roar: Puyi! Puyi! Puyi!

Capdevila dances again.

After the Queen’s speech (“nice job lads, tighten up on the finishing”) Dona Sofía mistakes one of the federation officials, the former Real Sociedad president Luis Uranga, for Del Bosque, only for the coach to arrive in the nick of time, to bow and to invite her back on Sunday. Soccer City. The World Cup final.

Germany 0 Spain 1

Germany: Neuer, Lahm, Friedrich, Mertesacker, Boateng (Jansen 52), Khedira (Gomez 81), Schweinsteiger, Trochowski (Kroos 62), Özil, Podolski, Klose

Spain: Casillas; Ramos, Piqué, Puyol, Capdevila; Busquets, Alonso (Marchena 90+3); Iniesta, Xavi, Pedro (Silva 86); Villa (Torres 81)

Goal: Puyol 73

Running right alongside Brazil 2014, this is my day-by-day story of how Spain won the last World Cup. You can catch up on previous posts.

These stories are from Spain: The Inside Story of La Roja’s Historic Treble, by Graham Hunter

—

Ask any Spanish journalist in Durban and they will tell you there is only one selection dilemma for the semi-final against Germany tomorrow: to Torres or not to Torres. That is the question. Everyone trains, including Fàbregas, who has been to hospital for a scan on his right leg after a bad impact in training last night, revealing heavy bruising and no bone damage.

Nobody in the media notices Carles Puyol finishing training and then wandering up to Raúl Martínez: “I’m in so much pain, I’m not going to make it for this game tomorrow. We’re going to have to tell the Mister.”

When he talks about it Puyol calls the problem his gluteus muscle, which is between the hip and the top of the thigh. But he is feeling a tight, pinching pain from there down the side of his thigh to just above the side of his right knee. If Puyi tells you he is not going to be able to play it takes a very brave man to say, ‘I can fix that’, but that is what Martínez does: “Why tell the boss before you’ve let me have a look at this problem?”

Then he goes to work.

Before morning comes they pack in hours of agonising treatment. Puyol can suddenly move more freely and the Barcelona captain is nothing if not used to playing through pain.

Running right alongside Brazil 2014, this is my day-by-day story of how Spain won the last World Cup. You can catch up on previous posts.

These stories are from Spain: The Inside Story of La Roja’s Historic Treble, by Graham Hunter

—

Two Days until the World Cup semi-final

The further this bunch go, the more relaxed they are. Perhaps the joie de vivre which settles on Spain’s Potchefstroom retreat stems from an octopus named Paul. Pulpo Paul in Spanish.

England had woken up to the oracle powers of the Octopus Vulgaris much earlier in the tournament thanks to the fact that the star pupil of the Oberhausen Aquarium, although a native of Weymouth, tipped Germany to beat England in the last 16.

The deal is that Paul’s keeper places him in a tank which has two see-through plastic boxes with a piece of food in each. Each box is decorated with a flag of one of the two nations about to play. Television stations around the world love it.

So far at this tournament, Pulpo Paul (who made a damn good job of Euro 2008 in tipping four of Germany’s six matches correctly) has got every single German result right, including a shock defeat by Serbia in the group stages.

Ahead of the semi-final, Pulpo Paul plumps for La Roja.

 

Running right alongside Brazil 2014, this is my day-by-day story of how Spain won the last World Cup. You can catch up on previous posts.

These stories are from Spain: The Inside Story of La Roja’s Historic Treble, by Graham Hunter

—

Three days until the World Cup semi-final

The morning after the night before, there is always a hangover. Puyol took the ball smack in his face making one block against Paraguay; it was so bad that he temporarily lost full vision. Fàbregas has shoulder damage and will need an X-ray; Ramos took a boot to the head and his eyebrow has been stitched. As for Torres, intuition tells him he is going to be dropped. In fact, he knows it.

Fernando Torres: “There are better and worse times during a tournament and I was never going to make being left out a problem.”

However, away from all these trials, Andrésito Iniesta, a tormented soul just a few weeks ago, is currently the man of the tournament. He was the light in the darkness against Switzerland, creating his team’s best chances. Against Chile he helped create and then score goals of velvet smoothness to win Group H. Iniesta’s darting run and pass produced Villa’s winner against Portugal. Then, when Paraguay resisted for 83 minutes, he danced past three tackles to give Pedro the chance to start the woodwork bonanza which ended with Villa scoring again.

David Villa: “Iniesta is a genius.”

Xavi: “He’s Spain’s best player, no doubt. By a distance. He’s been through so, so much suffering this season and it’s done us all damage to see that. He’s respectful, quiet, a great professional, he’s earned his stripes – it’s just a joy to play with him.”

Back at base, it is back to basics. First-teamers have the day off, but Casillas trains. The night session is mostly based around intense, small-sided matches aimed at keeping those who have the fewest competitive minutes sharp, thinking quickly, fleet of foot and with a feeling that their moment might be just about to arrive.

In Pedro’s case, it is.

Running right alongside Brazil 2014, this is my day-by-day story of how Spain won the last World Cup. You can catch up on previous posts.

These stories are from Spain: The Inside Story of La Roja’s Historic Treble, by Graham Hunter

—

Pepe Reina is a fanatic for detail. The keeper will study striker after striker on DVD, particularly their one-on-one finishes and their penalty taking. Óscar Cardozo’s Benfica have been knocked out of the Europa League quarter-final by Reina, Fernando Torres and Liverpool this season, but only after the Paraguayan striker scored two penalties in the first leg. Each of them was tucked away firmly to the goalkeeper’s left. Having experienced that and seen the DVD compilation, Reina mentions to Casillas pre-match that if Paraguay get a penalty, or if the match goes to a shoot-out, then Cardozo’s default action is to shoot to his right and the goalkeeper’s left.

Paraguay get their first corner in in the 56th minute; Piqué dozes for a split second, Cardozo gets free and the Catalan hauls him down to the floor. Penalty.

Xavi thinks: ‘If they score this, we are practically out.’

Villa thinks: ‘Iker will save this. I’m going to be ready when he does.’

But Casillas is not working alone. Reina is up and jigging about, trying to get his colleague’s attention. Reina roars at Casillas: “Remember!”

Then, just like in Vienna two years earlier, he leaves him be.

Casillas, a demon card player according to Xavi, runs through the percentages in his mind.

In their last match, Paraguay went through in a penalty shoot-out against Japan and Cardozo shot to his left, beating the keeper’s right-handed dive. But his favoured style is to shoot to his own right and the keeper’s left.

Cardozo will know I saw the Japan penalty, so he is thinking about changing sides. In all the tension, he may have forgotten that Reina saw two of his penalties up close this season. I’m going left.

He does, he saves and when the ball is heading back up the field Reina is applauding his friend, and Casillas points over at him with both hands: Your good call.

Villa is ready. As play flows upfield, the striker gets in front of Alcaraz and wins Spain a penalty when the defender bundles him over. Xabi Alonso buries it, but Carlos Alberto Batres González does not even see the net bulge. The Guatemalan referee has been watching the edge of the penalty box. Three players appear to encroach but the Guatemalan believes that the furthest forward is a Spaniard, Cesc Fabregas.

Before the match Paraguay’s legendary keeper José Chilavert said of Batres: “He is the worst referee in the history of Guatemala and it’s shameful that he has been given this quarter-final.”

While Spanish bodies pile on top of the jubilant Alonso, Batres is blowing his whistle. Alonso must take it again.

This time the Spaniard knows he has not hit it properly and he’s doing a jerky little hop and skip with his arms stretched out before Justo Villar has even dived to his left to palm the ball away, as if his whole body is screaming: ‘Oh no!’

However, this time Fabregas has not encroached. He is first to the rebound. He gets a touch to take the ball past the dive of the goalkeeper and Villar takes him out. If you look in the Oxford English Dictionary for the definition of the word penalty, it will read: Cesc Fabregas. Minute 63. Spain vs Paraguay. World Cup 2012. But Batres has something in his eye, possibly a symphony orchestra, two Mini Coopers, a packet of Penguin biscuits and a horse, because he doesn’t see it.

Twenty minutes later, Andrés Iniesta hypnotises the Paraguay defence. He beats two defenders and draws another two toward him, the question marks visible above their befuddled heads as he cedes the ball to Pedro, one-on-one with the goalkeeper.

After all that has happened here, and all the history that has perennially prevented La Roja from progressing past the quarter-finals of any World Cup, all of Spain knows that even with the game tied at 0-0, Pedro must score or they will surely lose – to another penalty, an offside goal, a shoot-out or a dog running on to the pitch and dribbling the ball past Iker Casillas. That is how it goes with Spain and World Cups.

They think of Italy’s Mauro Tassotti elbowing the face of Luis Enrique in 1994. They think of Garba Lawal of Nigeria trickling a shot past Andoni Zubizarreta in 1998. They think of the Egyptian referee, Gamal Al-Ghandour, disallowing Fernando Morientes’ header in the 2002 defeat by South Korea on the false premise that Joaquín’s cross had gone out of play.

Pedro must score.

But Pedro hits the post.

Hold on a minute, though. The ball rebounds right to the feet of the tournament’s top scorer, the Golden Boot winner from Euro 2008, the most reliable striker Spain have ever had. David Villa.

Thirty million Spaniards breathe out in relief, cut short their curses and prayers, and they wait.

Villa opens up his body shape, strikes coolly with the inside of his right boot and the ball implacably seeks out the opposite post to the one Pedro just hit and rolls obstinately along the goal-line.

Twenty four hours earlier, in the middle of Potchefstroom’s Fanie du Toit rugby ground, Villa sat in front of me, with that very ball in his hands. He looked at the printed insignia: Jabulani, Kick-Off, Match 60, July 3, 2010 Paraguay vSpain. Ellis Park Stadium, Johannesburg, and held it up to the camera.

Asked to dedicate a couple of words to the fans back in Spain he said: “I got the winner in the last match and, tomorrow, I hope to score with this football to put us in the World Cup semi-final.”

And just as it reaches the post, which is still shuddering from Pedro’s initial shot, the Jabulani clips it and rolls over the line – Spain’s quarter-final jinx is dead, buried and gone for ever.

Adios Tassotti, adios Garba Lawal, adios Al-Ghandour.

Spain are going to the World Cup semi-finals for the first time in their history.

Paraguay 0 Spain 1

Paraguay: J Villar, Verón, Da Silva, Alcaraz, Merel, Cáceres (Barrios 84),

Santana, Barreto (Vera 64), Riveros, Valdez (Santa Cruz 72), Cardozo

Spain: Casillas, Ramos, Piqué, Puyol (Marchena 84), Capdevila, Busquets,

Xavi, Alonso (Pedro 75), Iniesta, Torres (Fabregas 56), Villa

Goal: Villa 83