Graham's Blog

Midway through Tito Vilanova’s last season at FC Barcelona, the club gave Xavi a contract through until 2016 – one which had a gross outlay of at least €30m, probably more.

I know that at the time there was a large body of firm opinion within the club’s football committee arguing that the deal offered should be one season at a fixed salary (2013-2014) and two where the salary would be based on objectives – how many games Xavi played, how long he was injury-free, and so on.

However, the then president, Sandro Rosell, intervened and authorised three-and-a-half seasons (from January 2013 until June 2016) at full salary. Only the great presidents take the bull by the horns and address the real situation, and Rosell wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, a great president (it was interesting the other day to read his testimony in the hearings over Neymar’s transfer funding that he signed such documents without reading the small print).

The team’s performance was still impressing the members; it was rumoured that Joan Laporta was planning to stand for the presidency again; Pep Guardiola had left many people under the impression that Rosell was partly to blame for his departure. The president had popularity – and votes – in mind. Ending or reducing Xavi’s lifespan at the club may have hurt him. He met the player over breakfast and – hey presto! – a  deal was struck. Presidential privilege.

Hence one of the club’s all-time great players, still Spain’s greatest footballer in my mind, had assured salary until 2016 – in total the kind of money to make the eyes water.

I believe, implicitly, the people closest to him who told me during the World Cup that Xavi took a decision in June to leave Barcelona and play in Qatari football. Not a firm decision about which of the offers to accept, but that terribly difficult step to take, psychologically, in choosing to say goodbye to the club which he loves and which he has nourished since he was old enough to order a beer in a pub.

Intermediaries jumbled up those negotiations and there was a flurry of propositions – at least three – from MLS franchises. I understand that the David Beckham project in Miami, Seattle and Manchester City’s New York project were all after Xavi. Those, too, tempted him, but a firm and decisive conversation with his former team-mate and new coach, Luis Enrique, caused him to seek the reverse gear, to focus on staying with Barcelona as his main option and to turn up for the first day of training this morning.

Built in here is the idea that if he chose to save Barcelona two years of wages, totaling more than €20m, by leaving it is de rigeur – 100% established practice – that a player’s agent will negotiate him a slice of what he is saving the club. I know some agents who would fully expect a 50/50 split: “Pay us one year’s salary and we’ll go now, which saves you the second year’s salary. You come out well ahead on the deal.”

It’s clear to me that this process wasn’t fruitful between Barcelona and Xavi and that’s been part of the decision to stay, as has the fact that City’s New York franchise, where Frank Lampard and David Villa will play, doesn’t kick off until next spring.

Since Luis Enrique was appointed the current president Josep Maria Bartomeu has been saying: “Xavi has earned the right to decide whether he stays or goes.” I don’t think that’s how Luis Enrique will see it. It’s imperative he sets a tone, sets an atmosphere – unites the squad under his leadership. That starts from today. Whatever personal relationship he enjoyed with Xavi previously, for good or bad, however much respect he feels for Xavi’s career, he’s coach now and can’t afford the distraction of the other players wondering: Is Xavi staying? Is he going? Does he support the new coach?

Thus, I reckon, we can understand this week’s article in El Pais by the exceptional Luis Martín in which he announced that the conversation between the two men consisted of the new coach saying: “You are welcome to be part of this, I see your importance, but if you stay then don’t be complaining to me if you’re not playing as much as you’d like to.”  Rules laid out firmly and clearly.

There are echoes for me here. When Frank Rijkaard took over in 2003 he was urged by the board who appointed him that Luis Enrique wasn’t the way forward – but he repeatedly gave the midfielder a starting place. When asked by Ferran Soriano (who is now trying to sign Xavi for New York City) why this was happening, Rijkaard argued that to win the dressing room he had to convert the old heads, and his management method (as opposed to that of Pep Guardiola) was to convince rather than to excise. Rijkaard testified that by winning Luis Enrique over, the midfielder became a force for good, someone who, whether playing or not, eventually emphasised the messages that the Dutch coach was putting forward to his players and who left, voluntarily, at the end of that first Rijkaard season.

His decision about when and how to leave also has echoes for me. Like Xavi, Luis Enrique suffered achilles problems late in his career and I well remember the game in October 2002, under coach Louis Van Gaal, where Barcelona ran riot against Alaves with Luis Enrique and Xavi both scoring in a rampant 6-1 win. The midfielder, then 32, stayed on the pitch too long given the pain he was suffering. As a result he couldn’t play again until the following February. From then until the end of the following season it was both bewildering and painful to watch. A truly great modern footballer worked his socks off, ran just as hard, showed all the same hunger – but his form just fell off a cliff. Things didn’t work for him, he wasn’t as influential and during his four-month lay-off something crucial – heaven knows how to define it – had left him for good.

Eight days after his 34th birthday, Luis Enrique knew it was time to stop, so he stopped.

Xavi’s case is different. His athleticism has been affected by age, wear and tear, massive amounts of stress and responsibility for club and country over the years and that chronic pain he suffers from. But he remains a footballer of vitality and brilliance. How to make the best out of the next year or two before he retires is a choice full of dilemmas, pitfalls and opportunities.

If he is to stay – even if it is only until the winter and a move to New York – then it’s vital that he works, encourages and plays like someone wholly committed and wholly energetic about the new coach and his project. Otherwise problems lie in wait.

What I’d like, what I fervently wish for, is that a true all-time great of football anywhere in the world, in any era, handles his decision-making with the same precision, boldness, grace, discipline and intelligence that he’s displayed while entertaining us over the last couple of decades.

GH – 24.7.14

The illustration here is by the brilliant @DanLeydon – one of his collection to feature in Barca: The Making of the Greatest Team in the World. Check out his work here. 

Ashley Cole is just one more of those footballers who has managed to develop a ‘difficult’ reputation via parts of his country’s media, social media and the perception of some fans. But whenever I’ve met him and interviewed him, the experience rips those perceptions to shreds. Whatever he’s like to negotiate with when he wants a new contract, I know that he’s a thoughtful, interesting and articulate guy when you are talking about football. Committed, too.

I’ll never forget John Terry describing to me the lengths Cole went to in order to overcome a muscle injury and be fit for the Champions League final in Moscow –  pain, lack of sleep and almost 60 straight hours of physio and rehab to make the impossible possible.

Thus I was pleased to hear him confirming something now that he’s rolled the dice on the last few years of his top-level career being spent in Rome. The full-back said: “English players are probably afraid to come abroad, they’re in a comfort zone in England.”

It’s broadly true of all players from the British Isles. Fear of learning a language, inability to cope with restaurant menus which go beyond meat and two veg, complacency – fear of the alien.

There are contradictions and exceptions, of course. Given my love of the spice and variety of continental football it’s not a surprise to me that I’ve stayed in touch with and respect very much men like Steve Archibald [Barça], John Collins [Monaco], Steve McManaman [Madrid], Alan McInally [Bayern] and Chris Waddle [Marseille].

But Ashley Cole has pointed to something which I think is both sad and which contributes to the lack in the UK of nous, the lack of maturity and intelligence which it takes to form top-class international footballers and teams.

Challenging themselves to perform at one of the continents powerhouse clubs will lend any footballer – even the best – a new dimension, both in sporting and personal terms.

Researching my book on Spain and their historic treble I spoke to Gaizka Mendieta, who played in Spain, Italy and England and has chosen to stay and live near London, and he insisted that any talented player benefits from the experience of stepping outside his comfort zone.

Gaizka: “When the French team won the World Cup [in 1998], 12 of the 14 players they used to win the final were playing their club football abroad but, at that time, not one of our [Spain] guys was. Having footballers with experience abroad definitely benefits the whole team. It won’t automatically make you a better player, but it makes you more of a man, a more rounded footballer with a bit of world experience. It changed everyone’s mentality, players, fans, media, when that some of us went abroad. Suddenly, people were interested in other leagues and that opens your mind. 

“There are a number of different factors in creating a successful team – the players, their innate talent, the manager, the directors, the federation, the group dynamic, timing and so on. But having the right mentality is crucially important. Spain was a nation which made it to the quarter-finals and no further. We were in a rut and needed to make that mental leap, to start believing that we could compete with Germany, France, with everyone.”

Change the nation in that penultimate sentence from Spain to England and see how it fits?

Raúl, crown prince of the Bernabéu and utterly embedded in all things Madridista (ie no less umbilically tied to Madrid than Gerrard to Liverpool, Lampard to Chelsea, Ferdinand to United) admitted once he was leaving the Bundesliga that he should have moved there sooner – broadened his horizons when he was still at his peak.

Raúl: “These two years have been absolutely extraordinary. I will never forget that and from what I have seen the people won’t forget me that soon either.  I have enjoyed every match and every journey. I have really felt euphoric, because everything just fitted perfectly. Everybody had told me about them, but you when you see it by yourself, how they feel their club… it’s almost like a religion. It’s just wonderful. I’m not just saying it, to play for Schalke has been one of the best experiences in my life. I have no words to express what the fans have given me. To pay back their love I should have scored more goals. I have felt at home here, like at Madrid for over 17 years”

I know one or two people were surprised at how highly I praised Gareth Bale’s behaviour and attitude from day one at Madrid [I think the end of season proved my point] but, to me, just his determination to play at the world’s most pressurized club at an age which will lead to his prime was worthy of total respect.

May he, and Cole, begin a flood of Scots, English, Irish and Welsh who are ready to prove that sometimes in football it’s just as good to arrive as to travel hopefully.

Main image: Football.ua

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

—

Holland v Spain. World Cup final

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

Before the World Cup final, the mood is reflective: ‘What lies ahead? Am I ready? Can we win?’ Reflection takes most of them to think of family, girlfriends and absent friends.

Jesús Navas and Ramos are preparing undershirts which will allow them to pay tribute to their former team-mate Antonio Puerta, who died after collapsing during a match in 2007. Ramos did the same for the Euro 2008 trophy presentation and the memory of his friend, with whom he played at Sevilla and in the categorias inferiores, has not dimmed one iota.

Llorente suggests to Iniesta that he will help him sketch out a tribute to Dani Jarque, the Espanyol defender and an international team-mate of Iniesta’s at under-21 level, who died aged 26 in 2009, for the Barcelona man’s undershirt. They get to it.

When the time comes, Del Bosque doesn’t reach for stirring, patriotic, out-of-character rhetoric.

“Guys, you are not soldiers going into battle. This is football, not a war. We compete, we fight to have the ball, but we are here to keep on playing the way that we know how, to be loyal to our style. Humility, solidarity; be brave, start well, go after the game. That’s important.

“Don’t get tricked into doing anything daft. The only way to fail is to abandon what we believe in. Do it for yourselves, this is the biggest moment of your career, but if you need to think of anyone else, think of all the kids back home in Spain who are praying for you to win. Let’s give them what they want.”

Pre-match, on the BBC, Clarence Seedorf repeats a common analysis: “I think the key battle will be Robben against Capdevila.”

Arjen Robben (pre-match): “I would much prefer to win a very ugly game than lose a beautiful one. The point is, we are in a World Cup final. From now on, how you actually play no longer matters. We will defend from the front; no-one here feels they are too special to get their hands dirty.”

Maarten Stekelenburg, brilliant on the night, produces a fine save to prevent Ramos’ header from going in early on. And then the thuggish nature of Holland’s gameplan becomes evident. Even while the game rages on it brings them worldwide condemnation via broadcast and social media.

The referee, Howard Webb, tries to cope with Holland’s attempts to kick Spain out of the contest, but he also makes mistakes. By half-time it is no exaggeration to say that Van Bommel, Nigel de Jong and Sneijder could all have been red carded.

Van Bommel dives in and slices Iniesta to the ground from behind. Sneijder stamps his studs right into Busquets’ knee with the Spaniard standing upright. De Jong infamously brings his right leg up to kung-fu height and puts his studs into Xabi Alonso’s chest.

By the end, Holland have committed 29 fouls, Spain 19. Nine bookings and a red card to five yellows. One of Spain’s bookings is for Iniesta removing his shirt to commemorate Dani Jarque.

Spain’s previous six games have produced a total of 19 yellows, only three of which have been for them. Holland finish the tournament as the team with the worst disciplinary record – twice as bad as anyone else.

Later in the game Johnny Heitinga is sent off for a second booking when he hauls Iniesta back in the middle of a one-two with Xavi. Puyol should have been sent off, too, for climbing on Robben as he broke through. Robben is a menace, but Capdevila plays him excellently, and he manages it half-lame.

Joan Capdevila: “Did you see the state of my ankle that night? Van Persie stamped right on it and the ref booked him, but it was so bad I was sure I wouldn’t be able to carry on after half-time The ankle was already swollen up like a tennis ball. During the break I had to lie down because of the pain. I got some treatment, got it bandaged up tight and just forced myself to play on in the end. In a normal match you’d give up after an injury like that, but that day it was different.”

Heitinga conjures up a miraculous block from David Villa close in, when the striker’s volley seemed a certain goal.

Then, with 20 minutes left, a heart-stopping moment. Sneijder, although falling, spears a pass between Puyol and Piqué and Robben is free through the middle, just him and his former Real Madrid team-mate Casillas. The Spanish captain initially looks befuddled. He takes a couple of hops forward then a couple of steps back. Instead, he is undergoing a transformation. Suddenly, there is ice in his veins.

Robben advances, he picks his spot and he correctly judges that Casillas, as a left-footed player, has a marginal preference for diving to his left in 50:50 situations. However, Casillas extends his right leg up in the air, stretched as far as he is able and Robben’s net-bound shot clips the toe of Casillas’ right boot. Unfeasibly, the ball deflects wide. The best save I have ever seen.

With seven minutes left, Robben again gobbles up a headed knock-on and powers through. Puyol grapples him, tries to bring him down and Robben insists on staying upright and trying to dribble round Casillas to score. However, his momentum is checked, Casillas dives at his feet and the second-best chance of the game is gone.

Ramos misses with a convertable header. Fàbregas is in prime scoring position but Stekelenburg produces a save with his outstretched boot which is almost the equal to that made by Casillas.

The climax of the story is near, but now the chief protagonist comes close to leaving the stage. Andrés Iniesta thought he wasn’t going to make it to this tournament. Once here, injury very nearly robbed him of a chance to play. Now, it very nearly all slips away from him at the last moment, due to the most uncharacteristic loss of one of the most even tempers in football. Van Bommel has fouled consistently and now goes over the ball to plant his studs on Iniesta’s ankle. No foul is given. As the play moves away, Iniesta get up and checks Van Bommel, knee to thigh.

Andrés Iniesta: “I was just being fouled for 80 minutes. Perhaps the referee, if he wanted to interpret it differently then maybe he could have sent me off. These things happen in football.”

Howard Webb speaks to Iniesta, but that is all. The decision – which makes sense in the context of what has been allowed to pass that night – changes Iniesta’s life, and football history.

With just over four minutes left in extra-time, Navas, in a right wingback position, sets off with a skip and a hop down the touchline. His inside pass to Iniesta, centre pitch, is shuttled on to Fàbregas, who supplies Torres out wide. He sees the run Iniesta has made forward – the little midfielder is at the far right-hand edge of the box. However, Torres slightly underhits the crossfield ball.

Van der Vaart is filling in for Heitinga at centre-back. As he attempts to clear, he slips and the ball is available on the edge of Holland’s penalty area. Fabregas has anticipated and takes a touch before cushioning a pass to Iniesta. Van der Vaart should be in midfield, marking Iniesta. Instead he is in defence, covering for Heitinga, sent off for a foul on … Iniesta. There is one name cropping up here again and again and again.

Andrés Iniesta: “In that moment we were alone, the ball and I. I could hear nothing. As far as I was concerned, the whole stadium had fallen silent. I waited for the Isaac Newton effect, for gravity to make the ball drop and the second I had it at my foot, I knew it was going in, I just knew it. It had all come down to this moment. I knew exactly how to control it and where to put it: as hard as I could across Stekelenburg, so that he had no time to react.”

Back in Fuentealbilla, where Iniesta was born, his dad José Antonio is watching at home, alone. His fear of flying is such that he took the train from Barcelona to Vienna for the Euro 2008 final and he often misses his son’s biggest games. In such circumstances, he prefers to watch in peace and quiet. When his son scores, José Antonio turns off the television immediately. He cannot bear the tension of the next couple of minutes.

Iniesta’s mother, María Francisca Luján, meantime, is equally stressed down at Bar Luján, in the centre of town, where Grandad Iniesta was the landlord for 35 years. On retirement, he converted every newspaper cutting he ever saved about his talented grandson into an archive which covers every millimetre of wall space. On the night of Iniesta’s final it is packed, like most bars in Spain, and María Francisca is so uptight that she goes outside to seek fresh air and is still out there when her son scores his historic goal.

Now he is tearing off his Spain shirt so that the world can see his t-shirt: ‘Dani Jarque, always with us.’ Now he is submerged. Long after the tournament, he will admit that even in the heat of this moment, he quickly reckons on staying in that mad celebratory huddle for as long as Webb will permit, in order to use up time.

At the far end of the pitch, Iker Casillas sets off on a run, arms outstretched as if he is trying to build up enough speed to take flight. As emotion over-rides adrenaline, he collapses to his knees and tears overtake him.

Del Bosque is standing motionless, alone. He is in the perspex dugout, like a guy waiting for a bus to take him home to Salamanca after a long day at work.

Four minutes later, that whistle sounds.

Fireworks light up the sky above Fuentealbilla. Only then does José Antonio Iniesta know for sure that his son has won the World Cup for Spain.

Holland 0 Spain 1 (after extra-time)

Holland: Stekelenburg, Van der Wiel, Heitinga, Mathijsen, Van Bronckhorst

(Braafheid 105), Van Bommel, De Jong (Van der Vaart 99), Robben, Sneijder,

Kuyt (Elia 71), Van Persie

Spain: Casillas, Ramos, Piqué, Puyol, Capdevila, Busquets, Alonso

(Fabregas 87), Iniesta, Xavi, Pedro (Navas 60), Villa (Torres 106)

Goal: Iniesta 116

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

—

Unbeknownst to me, sparks are flying at Soccer City. Shakira arrives for a sound test and run-through of her key role tomorrow in the closing ceremony. Her song Waka-Waka has been anthemic – everywhere during these weeks. Recording a video for it in Barcelona before the World Cup, she met Gerard Piqué. He has a big day tomorrow, too.

It is being called Cruyff’s final. His emergence helped make the Holland team coached by Rinus Michels successful and seductive in the 1970s. His arrival and teachings at FC Barcelona changed the entire mentality of that club. The system he installed there produced Valdés, Xavi, Iniesta and Puyol then later Busquets, Pedro and Piqué.

Cruyff was one of the few predicting Spain would win the tournament immediately after the Switzerland defeat and before the final he says: “The last few World Cup winners have been sad to watch. I have had to watch games with Brazil, France, Italy and England recently where nothing happened. Against Germany, Spain just went out to enjoy themselves – in a World Cup semi-final.

“I’m going to watch this game with a few Spanish friends and take the view that no matter which team wins, I can’t lose.”

It is a bit startling to read Ronald de Boer, another Camp Nou alumnus and the brother of Holland’s assistant coach, admitting: “Before the competition I thought Holland were spectacular. Now I don’t enjoy watching them play at all. It’s not exciting.”

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 final

Morten Olsen, the Denmark coach, says something prophetic. Everyone else, Spain’s players included, were talking about the debt both footballing nations, Holland and Spain, owe to Johan Cruyff and the football philosophy of Rinus Michels. Excitement is growing about an open final. Olsen, who coached Ajax to the Dutch league and cup double, begs to differ: “If Brazil had beaten Holland, instead of the other way round, Holland would have been slaughtered at home. Not simply for going out but because of the disastrous way they are playing.”

He is on to something.

At today’s press conference there is a lady from a Mexican television channel who is a real personality. Her questions are always bubbly, sometimes funny and this day she is going for the big one.

“Carlos, Pulpo Paul [Paul the Octopus, the all-knowing aquatic analyst] has had a brilliant World Cup, calling the winner of every match it has predicted. Now Pulpo Paul says Spain are going to win the final. What do you think?”

Marchena pauses, squints at the journalist and turns to one side. There is a gentle creaking as the multinational audience gently lean forward for what is clearly going to be a significant answer of depth and consideration.

Marchena leans into the microphone and says, deadpan: “Well, it’s … an octopus!” His audience corpses.

By this point, everyone who has secured an interview on the final open media day before press conferences at Soccer City on Saturday and the final itself on Sunday is keeping quiet about it. Everyone who does not have an interview is prepared to steal from friends and colleagues to get one, and worse besides.

Gerard Piqué saves my bacon, agreeing on the quiet to nip into our studio, to talk Barcelona, Cruyff, Holland, Total Football, Spain and the World Cup final.

He finishes our interview with the words: ‘Perfecto, Graham?’

It is a sign. Everything is going to be perfecto.