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.