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

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With just over 48 hours to go to the match in Cape Town, all the evidence at training indicates that Fernando Torres is winning his battle to convince Del Bosque he should start against Portugal. So far, everything about the World Cup has been going right for El Nino, other than the inconvenient fact that the tournament has come along two or three weeks too early for optimum recuperation.

Wherever he goes he is treated like a pop star. South Africa lost Benni McCarthy, their talented and talismanic striker, just before the World Cup and the nation’s football supporters seem to have adopted Torres as their favourite No.9. Girls want to touch him, police want his autograph, security staff want a photo with him and if he walks around the town of Potchefstroom crowds of schoolkids, on holiday for a month, flock after him like gulls following a trawler. It’s a spectacle.

It seems crazy, but many modern young sportsmen, particularly in Spain, know little or nothing about the struggle against racism here – or even what apartheid was. Torres is different.

“When I play any tournament I study the country and I have done that with South Africa. I  know a bit about the old history, apartheid, Mandela’s ANC struggle, and that means we have to show support and respect for the country’s push to move on from those crimes.

“The World Cup gives this part of Africa an unmissable opportunity to feel integrated into the world and no longer a scapegoat, so it is our duty to make the tournament a success and joyful.

“The Chile match was an intense game but beautiful, the kind I am totally accustomed to in England. I’ve had 90 minutes across three games in nearly three months and you can train to your heart’s content but it doesn’t bring you that finesse or match sharpness required to score. The World Cup is unforgiving and won’t wait for me, but without game time I won’t find my form.”

This, bluntly, is Del Bosque’s big dilemma.

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

—

The people of Potch have died and gone to heaven. Spain have qualified, the media pack are going to stay and spend money for at least a few more days, NW University continues to receive a worldwide profile and the downtown mall is a footballing Hollywood.

There is a traffic jam of off-duty Spain stars in eateries. In one, Del Bosque is having dinner with his wife Trini and their children Vicente, Gemma and Álvaro, when they see Xabi Alonso, Fernando Torres, Raúl Albiol, Juan Mata and Sergio Ramos walking through the door. The Del Bosque kids insist on getting their pictures taken with the stars. Dad is just dad, but Xabi … well, he’s Xabi.

Again, only Casillas refuses to take the evening off. The night holds particular significance for three peripheral men, two of whom will have a pivotal influence on La Roja’s progress in the tournament.

Training is open and during the practice match there is a slight tangle of bodies. Fernando Llorente leans into Albiol in order to get his telescopic leg into a challenge. The defender falls in the least dramatic manner imaginable, but one of his studs has caught in the turf and Albiol is in trouble. He is stretchered from the pitch and taken to hospital. Llorente, the newbie, looks shell-shocked.

The match finishes and this time there is an improvised mixed zone round the back of the changing rooms. The players must pass the media on the way to their meal and the bedrooms, but at a distance of about 15 metres. The Spanish reporters are desperate to get Llorente’s side of the story, but when he eventually emerges from the dressing room he has a bodyguard.

Pepe Reina has one of his arms around Llorente’s shoulder and is walking him along. Reporters petition the striker for an interview, but the response comes from the Liverpool goalkeeper: “Fernando has got his tea waiting lads and then I’m going to beat him at table tennis – can’t stop, sorry.”

It is another example of the tournament mentality central to this team’s success.

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

—

Chile v Spain

Uno y dos y tres … ganar y ganar y ganar!

In the hours before this match, every one of the Spain players confront the fear that this might not be their night and their World Cup could be over. They all know that it will be regarded as a calamitous failure should the champions of Europe fail to get out of their group.

They shirk away from the thought of the rabid nation that would await their early return. But their real fear is that of letting themselves down. They know they are potential winners here. Fear crackles everywhere.

One senior player, whose identity I will preserve, turns to another en route to the match and tells his team-mate: “I’m crapping myself.” His colleague is shocked. “The silence on the bus ride from the hotel to the stadium was terrible,” Del Bosque will subsequently recall.

David Villa: ¨The hours before that game were the most nervous I can recall since I joined the national side.”

Gerard Piqué: “There was so much silence, everyone was lost in their own world, thinking about what they could do to help the team get through.”

Xavi: “You could see it on everyone’s faces, this was an extraordinary tension.”

Del Bosque’s team talk is shorter than a drunken Scotsman’s temper.

“Okay, I say this every day but more than ever now, don’t get suckered into making mistakes. And let’s be united out there. If there’s one guy with the ball there must be two around him. And just one detail. There are many, many lads back home for whom you are examples. Let’s go out there and just do this for them.”

Thirteen seconds. Everyone clusters and bows down into the huddle.

One voice: “Uno y dos y tres.”

Every voice: “Ganar y ganar y ganar!”

Del Bosque heads out to the tunnel and for a split second Xavi and Casillas want their voices to be heard.

“Never mind what we won two years ago, never mind going home with honour never mind playing football with a smile on our face. This is life or death, this is the match of all our careers. We must win.”

It is an asphyxiating match for the European champions, until a sublime intervention from David Villa.

Chile playmaker Jorge Valdívia, talented but sloppy, is robbed by Xabi Alonso, deep in Spain’s half and with hardly any effort. Worse for Chile, Gary Medel, a midfielder who is playing centre-back tonight, fed Valdívia and has continued his run in search of a return pass. Chile are exposed and Alonso sees it instantly. He clips a long pass to Fernando Torres and, seeing El Nino is going to win his race with Gonzalo Jara, goalkeeper Claudio Bravo decides to sprint out to rescue his defender. Well outside his area, Bravo slides into a powderpuff clearance, but Villa has anticipated what is unfolding. He is on the run down the left wing and as the ball drops to him 40 metres out he uses his left foot to crack a volley, while he’s in full-flight. The ball arcs beautifully from left to right, bounces just once and curls into the far panel of the empty net.

Thirteen minutes later, Chile are trying to begin a move down their left, but the ball played to the full-back Jara is loose and Iniesta is on it. He intercepts, bursts forward, feeds a pass to Torres on his right and the Liverpool striker puts a perfect service back into the midfielder’s path. As Iniesta glides on to it he sees Villa out to the left of the penalty area and fizzes the pass; Chile’s defenders commit thecardinal sin of following the ball. Villa opens his body and returns the ball intoIniesta’s now clear path and the midfielder uses his instep to cushion a volley intothe far panel of Bravo’s net.

While the players are celebrating, the Mexican referee is across the pitch sending off Chile’s Marco Estrada. During the move, once Torres had fed Iniesta, the striker continued his run, looking for a back-post cross, but Estrada clipped his ankle and Torres went flying. It looked like an inadvertent error. Moreover, it was off the ball and during the move Spain scored. Nevertheless Senor Marco Rodríguez won’t budge on his decision, the referee’s second red card of the tournament stands.

Spain are 2-0 up and they are playing 10 men. When they concede a deflected goal within two minutes of the start of the second half, it simply makes things unnecessarily uncomfortable.

Then, with about 15 minutes left, Marcelo Bielsa starts gesticulating to his team: ‘This will do!’ Chile are told to defend at 2-1 down, and, although it is horrible to watch, that is what they do. For what feels an interminable time (“the most placid 15 minutes of our tournament” Del Bosque later calls it) Chile not only retreat behind the halfway line but a good 15 yards inside their own half. If Spain do not attempt to cross halfway, Chile simply let them have the ball for as long as they wish. They refuse to compete.

Previous Group H results mean that Switzerland, drawing 0-0 with Honduras at that moment, will not only have to win but to score two unanswered goals to qualify. However, if Switzerland score once, win 1-0 and Chile concede a third goal, then Chile are out. A far more threatening and more likely scenario. Captain Casillas tells his defence that if Chile don’t want to venture past the halfway line then Spain will remain group winners: there is an impromptu concord. Switzerland are effectively conspired against and it makes an unedifying, if understandable, spectacle.

Chile 1 Spain 2

Chile: Bravo, Isla, Medel, Ponce, Jara, Vidal, Estrada, M González (Millar 46), Valdívia (Parades 46), Sánchez (Orellana 65), Beausejour

Goal: Millar 47

Spain: Casillas, Ramos, Piqué, Puyol, Capdevila, Alonso (Martínez 73), Busquets, Iniesta, Xavi, Villa, Torres (Fabregas 55)

Goals: Villa 24, Iniesta 37

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

—

La Roja work out locally because the Loftus Versfeld stadium in Pretoria has just hosted USA vs Algeria and the organising committee is concerned that if both teams train on the pitch tonight, it will not be in good condition for the Group H decider tomorrow.

For this short trip Spain will risk the bus on the N12. The real reason is that if things go against them then the next travel itinerary will be to Oliver Tambo Airport and onwards to Madrid. They won’t need a flight back to their base here in Potchefstroom.

Meanwhile, I grab Sergio Ramos and ask him what he was up to the other night against Honduras. His performance was not 100% disciplined and restrained and thus, perhaps, not quite what Del Bosque ordered, but it was thrilling to watch. He ran a trench into the right touchline, nearly scoring on three occasions.

“Yeah, I wanted to score and dedicate it to someone [female] whom I promised to get a goal for in this World Cup. I didn’t score in Germany four years ago so I promised that over here I’d do a special celebration for her. Hopefully I can fulfil my promise.”

Ramos lives with a swagger, a footballing Errol Flynn. He played with a pain-killing injection at Ellis Park, his ribs flaring with each swashbuckling run.

Sergio Ramos: “I’m delighted to be known as someone who hungers for the big games, the pressure games. Against Chile it will be a massive match, full of emotion. We know from experience that there are masses of people watching at home desperate for us to do well. I like to feel that they can identify with my pride in playing for Spain and my love for the national team jersey. I want it to show.”

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

—

Players who have girlfriends or wives around are given a few hours off to go see them. A group of six players nip down the central plaza to an Italian restaurant (most of the Barça contingent plus Javi Martínez). Torres goes for a wander and causes one or two heart flutters when he gets back to the army check point to discover that he does not know where his accreditation is. Credit to the Bafana Bafana supporting soldier, he knows precisely who El Nino is but just won’t budge an inch until someone from the federation comes out of the accommodation building and walks over to the security point to ‘okay’ Torres.

Meanwhile, Iniesta wanders downtown to the Mooi Rivier mall to idle around the CD library of the big audio-visual store. Unmolested, happy buying music, tranquil again.

Now it emerges from FIFA that Villa is not to be banned for the Group H decider against Chile. Just before half-time against Honduras, Izaguirre trod his studs onto Villa’s toe in search of a reaction. The Asturian gave the defender an open-handed clip on the face. Some referees would certainly have sent him off. However, Yuichi Nishimura doesn’t see it nor does he put it in his report. Case closed.

“It was an instinctive thing, I’m not proud – I’m going try to maintain better control if I’m provoked in future,” Villa reflects.

From their first day with the federation, Spain’s players are taught that it is a sin to be sent off. It is a betrayal of one’s team-mates; it decreases the chances of success; it may well mean another colleague takes and keeps your place in the team. It is a commandment: Thou Shalt Not Be Sent Off. Villa has been lucky.