Graham's Blog

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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Vicente Del Bosque’s players are given most of the day off to go to the Bona Bona Safari in search of Africa’s fabled big five: elephants, lions, leopards, rhinos and buffalo. Right now victory is the endangered species.

After dinner, a meeting is called by Del Bosque and his director of football, Fernando Hierro. It is held in the cricket club: sufficiently far from the main accommodation that if there happens to be any harsh truths exchanged there will be no unnecessary witnesses.

This is a ‘Chatham House Rule’ get-together: even if some of the topic headings are going to be shared outside the room, there must be confidentiality around details and, above all, ‘who said what’. It means a stripping away of hierarchy; every voice has equal weight for the hour or so that they meet, before authority is restored. No grudges will be held and no subject is off limits.

Although there have been a handful of versions of the roll-call, I am content that present are: Del Bosque, Toni Grande, Hierro, Casillas, Xavi, Reina, Marchena, Torres and Alonso. What is also now clear is that the players are unified in telling Del Bosque that they wholly support his ideas, his playing scheme and are tranquil about the fact that defeat by Switzerland was simply an accident.

The manager wants it made clear, and disseminated, that not only will he not be altering the formation, nor will he be looking for scapegoats and there is no way he will bow to media pressure about changes. Nobody will be dropped in punishment.

Hierro tells the current players he has never seen such harmony and conviction in a Spain camp and that he is still completely confident that the team can achieve something great.

Del Bosque’s final message brings the meeting to an end: “We had to win six games to win the World Cup before that Switzerland result and we still only have to win six games.”

Vicente del Bosque: “It was a moment of intense analysis. I wanted to know the players’ opinions even though I had a firm view of how we should react. It was imperative not to single anyone out. In this world of football we all make mistakes, we all lose. If you look to blame as a remedy to that then we’ll all lose all the time. Just because of one defeat we weren’t going to start playing around with the team or the system which had brought us this far.

“The meeting helped to clear everyone’s heads, get them focused on what my decisions were and to quietly spread that word. We also managed to analyse one or two things about the football we played against Switzerland with a view to assimilating what we’d learned. I think it was unexpected that there would be no drastic changes but I was clear about the way forward.”

I wanted to tell the back story of Vicente Del Bosque, a coach who is a huge part of the stories of Real Madrid and the success of the Spain team.
It involves the radical politics of his father, the dictator Franco and the establishment credentials of Real Madrid, the club where Del Bosque shone as an elegant midfielder. I hope you like it.

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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Spain v Switzerland

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

 

The team talk is nothing bellicose. Compact. Low-key. Precisely 69 seconds long.

“Okay guys, what are our tasks today?

“Let’s get our heads in this game. The thing I want you to watch out for is if they have a free-kick then those who are not in the wall need to watch for them being smart and trying to feed the ball to runners, so David Villa and Xavi – watch out. Don’t let them surprise us.

“Pay attention to the fact that this is an important game – no red cards. If someone gets himself sent off then it’s a problem for the team and a problem for him.

“Nobody gets suckered into making mistakes. For Andres and David [Silva], make sure you are vigilant [in the wide positions], neither of you can lose concentration for a second.

“Think about winning and holding possession, think about using that possession to push the team forwards. Keep the ball moving. Sergio [Busquets], and Xavi, each of your positions needs to be dependent on the other – especially if one of you moves forward to initiate the play. If Pique pushes on to start a move you have to compensate for that.

“But above all be conscious of looking out for your team-mates, be conscious of being a united team, please.”

To shouts of vamos! they form their dressing-room huddle, every single player and staff member is in. And then comes their signature tune.

One voice: “Uno y dos y tres.”

All voices: “Ganar y Ganar y Ganar!”

My match position is 20 yards behind and to the right of Iker Casillas’ goal in the first half, as is that of his girlfriend, the television reporter Sara Carbonero. Like us, the game is beauty and the beast.

Spain play with verve and width, they create one-on-one chances and Alonso hits the bar. Piqué’s opportunity to score is easily the best, receiving a sweet pass from Iniesta, cutting inside the centre-back, Stephane Grichting, and shaping to put a right-footed shot to the left of the keeper. As he spreads his body, Diego Benaglio gets his left knee in place to deflect the shot wide.

The European champions have 24 attempts at goal, put eight on target, force 12 corners, commit 13 fewer fouls than the Swiss, don’t see a yellow card (to Switzerland’s four) but the beast is: they lose.

Six minutes after the break, Switzerland crash through the barrier of Spain’s doble pivote in midfield, Xabi Alonso and Sergio Busquets, the latter of whom makes two key mistakes. First, he is out-jumped by Eren Derdiyok, who will later come close to making it 2-0 when he trickles an effort off the post. Second, and worse, the Catalan fails to track the run of the Swiss striker after their challenge.

Carles Puyol rushes forward to plug the gap, but Blaise Nkufo, having picked up possession, returns the ball to Derdiyok sufficiently quickly that the defender is taken out of the move and Piqué is isolated. Derdiyok sprints to a one-on-one position against Casillas, who attempts to dive in and tackle with his feet. The ball breaks off both men, hits Derdiyok in mid-air, deflects off Piqué, who is sprinting to cover the goal line, and as the Catalan defender falls, a victim of the chaos in front of him, the ball squirms out from underneath his body and lies there for Gelson Fernandes, who has been padding alongside as an interested spectator, to stab home. The Keystone Kops feel increases when the boots of both Derdiyok and Casillas catch Piqué in the face.

In the dressing room, Arbeloa yells: “This isn’t where it ends, this is where it begins.”

Spain 0 Switzerland 1

Spain: Casillas, Ramos, Puyol, Piqué, Capdevila; Alonso, Xavi, Busquets (Torres

61); Iniesta (Pedro 77), Villa, Silva (Navas 62)

Switzerland: Benaglio; Lichtsteiner, Senderos (Von Bergen 35), Grichting,

Ziegler, Barnetta (Eggiman 92), Inler, Huggel, Fernandes, Derdiyok (Yakin 79),

Nkufo

Goal: Fernandes 52

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 European champions head east and land at King Shaka Airport mid-evening on a grey and drizzly Monday, June 14.
The media straggle in around midnight, a handful of us in the team hotel, the rest dispersed around the grateful B&Bs which cluster the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban. By morning, Spain awake to pleasant panoramic views of the Umgeni River and its wide mouth opening out onto the currently choppy Indian Ocean.
Their hotel is pretty basic and the front desk staff have an air of the Three Stooges about them, but these are undemanding, easy-going guests: feed ‘em, give ‘em beds and get them to the match on time. Pues, todo perfecto! [All’s well]
Tomorrow will be Spain’s 50th match in World Cup finals. They have won only 22 and never progressed beyond the quarter-finals.
Spain train in the afternoon and find the grass longer than their liking; irrespective of the threat of rain they would like the pitch watered heavily before the match and at half-time. Del Bosque gets them stretching, sprinting, playing a mini-match, and then home to the Riverside Hotel.
The technical staff settle down in the terrace bar outside the breakfast room to watch Brazil beat Korea 2-1. The tournament is not sparking and while Spain are here to win first and entertain second, there is a strong sense that the rest of the world is waiting for Del Bosque’s elite, sometimes irresistible, European champions to start the party.

 

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

—

Training is sharp, particularly the night-time work, during which it’s dark and winter-cold. It is as if the change of light and climate has transported the players back into mid-season mode.

Neither Villa nor Torres is ‘in the zone’ in front of goal – whether in minimatches or the finishing drills. Juan Mata is, though, Joan Capdevila hits a couple of screamers and when Puyol loses a small-sided match he kicks the portable goal over in fury. There isn’t a hint of over-confidence.

Álvaro Arbeloa says: “World Cups often start with drawn matches because of so many teams having a fear of losing instead of looking to score and win well, but we don’t have responsibility to serve up good football. We are just here in search of victory.”

Del Bosque tells us: “I think the team is okay, confident in its possibilities but with the degree of self-awareness required for a competition like this. But in Spain it is on the tip of everyone’s tongues that we are phenomenal, we are the tallest, the most handsome … all that.

“We’ve seen at this World Cup already that there are very minor differences between all the sides and we may struggle to win this first game unless we do our jobs particularly well. However, there’s such euphoria at home that it is impossible to turn that tide.”