Author: martin

Running right alongside Brazil 2014, this is my day-by-day story of how Spain won the last World Cup.

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

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This is one of those double-training days and already the Spaniards are in good humour. They can walk from their accommodation, past the heated outdoor pool, across a short green space, into the dressing rooms. From there, they move out through a tunnel and smack into the middle of the bleachers, which the scrum of media and the delirious locals will co-habit. Reporters hang over the railings calling out for the nod and wink which means an interview will happen; the locals holler, swoon and beg for autographs.

It being early winter, the mid-morning sun is strong, the sky is azure and the pitch cut so short and smooth it could be used to play billiards on. The Spanish federation director of football, Fernando Hierro, tells me: “It´s thrilling to have facilities which are of this high quality. The playing surface here is stupendous.”

On day one of World Cup 2014, I’m starting a day-by-day retelling of how Spain won in South Africa, four years ago. I hope you stay with it over the next month – and I hope you enjoy!
These stories are from Spain: The Inside Story of La Roja’s Historic Treble, by Graham Hunter

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As La Roja land on South African soil, Captain Gómez-Paratcha bids his passengers farewell with the words: “Let South Africa quake, Spain have arrived.”

Not long after, outside the student residences of NW University, where Linford Christie, Paula Radcliffe and Kelly Holmes have trained, Spain’s weary squad sit in the low sunshine of the Guateng autumn squinting at the Zulu performers in traditional costumes, dancing, slapping their wellington boots and ululating.

Post-siesta, La Roja train. They rondo the kinks out of their muscles and begin some pressing exercises, but there are only 22 of them.

It is dark, it is cold, the trees rustle in the gentle wind and, then, across the Fanie du Toit rugby pitch, through the security perimeter and onto the football pitch trots Andrés Iniesta, the missing splash of red. By his side is Hugo Camarero, the federation physio charged with pacing the midfielder’s rehab. Recuperation from the latest version of the thigh injury that has decimated his season at Barcelona is scheduled to go beyond June 16 and the Group H opener against Ottmar Hitzfeld´s Switzerland.

However, when the federation doctor, Oscar Celada, tells us that “Iniesta is driven by such hunger to get back and play against Switzerland that we might have to try and put the brakes on him,” it is not a code we need an Enigma machine to decipher.

Spain returned from winning Euro 2008 to a heroes’ reception in the capital Madrid. Thousands filled the city’s Plaza Colon to greet the squad, but it was Pepe Reina who took centre stage.

In the first in a series of short films – filmed in Madrid in March 2014 – I focus on the darkness before the dawn for the Spanish national team. Luis Aragones’ side arrived in Austria for Euro 2008 with the abuse of their fans ringing in their ears. It was a bizarre prelude to everything that followed…