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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Back at Potch, everyone is free until 7pm, training is recuperative and there are now only three guys, Víctor Valdés, Pepe Reina and the injured Raúl Albiol, who have not had game time. However, Reina’s moment is just around the corner.
Adidas are team sponsors, extremely adept at keeping both federation and players happy with their work and they would like to borrow the studio we have set up in a lecture theatre on the Potchefstroom campus. It’s how I meet Fernando Llorente for the first time.
The striker is contracted to Adidas and about to do a big interview for their site. While the crew set up the interview, he asks me where on earth my accent is from. He reckons I sound like the former Liverpool striker Michael Robinson, who starred for the team Llorente supports – Osasuna. We talk about Celts and the links between the north of Spain and Scotland, where I come from. Then it’s time for his interview. It’s not the last time we will hear of Llorente’s family ties.
Un secreto a voces in Spanish literally means ‘a secret being spoken about’: an open secret. That is what David Silva’s €33m move from Valencia (taking that club’s sales to €73m since May) to Manchester City has become. It is confirmed today and there is nobody in Potch who thinks it hasn’t affected Del Bosque’s decision-making process in giving Silva no game time since the Swiss defeat.