The Spanish FA president’s departure is a matter of time after an extraordinary week which changed the entire nationExactly a week after Spain won their second World Cup, the footballer who scored the goal which secured their first spoke out. On Sunday morning, Andrés Iniesta added his voice to those that had accumulated ever more rapidly over the previous days and hours, starting with the 23 players who had become champions in Sydney and the 12 that had not, ultimately sacrificing the moment of their lives for their principles, the pursuit of improvement. “We can’t tolerate the behaviour which has overshadowed this huge feat,” Iniesta wrote. “I can’t imagine how the players feel seeing that what is being talked about...
Another grim episode in Spain unfolded on Sunday night, but in confronting this, there is hope that it is inescapable nowThis Sunday, for the first time in 1,285 games as a coach and 47 years in football, Carlo Ancelotti refused to talk about the game. He had just seen Real Madrid lose 1-0 to Valencia but, standing in the cramped, narrow tunnel that leads to the Mestalla dressing room where he said his best player sat “angry and sad”, he didn’t care about that and couldn’t comprehend anyone else caring either. So when the standard post-match interview began with the standard post-match question, an enquiry as to his thoughts on another defeat, he decided that, actually, no, this wasn’t going...
A partisan crowd were thrilled while Cameroonian, Ghanaian, Senegalese and Tunisians united in the Souq for MoroccoA few minutes after Yassine Bounou’s penalty shootout heroics, Morocco’s players knelt in unison to pray before a baying bank of supporters drumming furiously to the sweet sound of victory against Spain. It was a powerful sight that will touch more than the tens of thousands of Moroccans here.After more than 130 minutes of gripping drama and relentless noise, Morocco are the lone Arab nation and last African team standing. The Argentinian referee, Fernando Rapallini, needed a megaphone to make himself heard. Continue reading...
Hajime Moriyasu’s team won a game that seemed way beyond them for the second time in a wild and extraordinary outcomeSuddenly they went wild and just as suddenly they stopped again. Japan’s players though would be given a second chance and so, it turned out, would Spain’s. Ao Tanaka had bundled the ball into the net, the World Cup upside down again and a sprint had begun, squad and staff racing each other from bench to corner. Hajime Moriyasu’s side had scored twice in three minutes and so, for the second time in this tournament, they were now winning a game that had seemed way beyond them; that hadn’t seemed like a match at all in fact.Better still, 2-1 up...
There were no goals until Álvaro Morata and Niclas Füllkrug came on, changing the scoreline if not the outcomeWell, there’s a thing. Maybe there is something to be said for these so‑called experts after all. For 53 minutes of this 1-1 draw Germany and Spain played out a carefully hedged, engrossingly mannered game of football. This was a game of midfield squared, of Big Midfield Energy, a quiet debauchery of midfield.Al Bayt Stadium is essentially a vast illuminated fibreglass tent dumped down in the desert scrub. It was packed here, or almost packed. But at times in the second half it was so quiet in the stands you could hear the air conditioning hiss. This is, it seems likely, not...