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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Today is Sunday and a single session, with the players given the afternoon off. This accounts for their grumpiness when they are told to report, in full playing kit, to the meeting room in their student accommodation block.

This is the bunker from which Del Bosque will lead them to victory, where the opposition is meticulously picked apart, but today the players are to get the referee briefing which each squad must listen to before their campaign gets underway. The referee committee has sent them Horacio Elizondo, the official in charge of the Berlin World Cup final four years previously.

Elizondo tries to ensure that every player is clear about how strictly obstruction will be enforced; how much influence ‘natural’ and ‘voluntary’ body positions will be taken into account in judging whether a handball must be ruled as a penalty or not. After an hour-long refresher course, their Argentinian professor hits them with a Q&A. Casillas, Alonso and Reina are top of the class.

However, there is restlessness. Once Elizondo finishes and solicits any further questions, Xavi (given the nod from his captain, Casillas) is polite but extremely firm in asking the ref to take a missive back to FIFA.

“We’ve sat here for an hour listening about how the rules are going to be interpreted, but you go back and you tell Sepp Blatter that because FIFA aren’t watering the pitches anything like sufficiently, and because they aren’t cutting the surface short enough they are handing a premium to defensive football. If he wants good football and he wants entertainment, tell him to sort the pitches out.”

I met the Spain coach, Vicente Del Bosque, to talk about the impact their three wins have had on his country as a whole; the politics of his late father; and also a particular part of his playing career which came to light as I researched my book on the national team’s golden era.

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.”

Let me take you inside Football City – the HQ of the Spain FA, and the place where the world’s media get to talk to the three-time champions. Outside, they have captured some of the moments from the World Cup and European Championships that have made this team great. Inside, there are images of every player to have represented Spain, including the man who now coaches them – Vicente Del Bosque.

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.