Spain scores in the desert
Spain beat Germany 6-0 and will be in the Final Four of the second edition of the Nations League. The matches will take place from 7 to 10 October 2021. Eleven months ahead we will know the new European champion and, who knows, if the bad dream of the pandemic will have passed.
Blessed is the absurdity of the Nations League. UEFA invented this system to make national team stoppages more enjoyable. Pausing the League three times right at the start has been very hard on club fans. Watching your team play against great powers is better than a Spain-Faroe Islands match. Let the Super League teams take note. These tournaments are a money-spinner, but watching your national team or team at the bottom of the table can choke more than one of you.
Nobody remembers how Spain got to the last game against Germany by playing for a place in the final round. The fans do not distinguish which matches have been official and which have been friendly. These days Spain has gone from losing 1-0 to Ukraine in a Nations League match, to a 1-1 draw with the Netherlands in a friendly, to end up beating Germany in a match so official that the Germans would have gone on to the Final Four with a draw. While the news is bombarding us with the second wave, the vaccine and the budgets of terror, the fans change the channel and get hooked on a second game or a match of Spain. It doesn't matter.
Luis Enrique's 'La Roja' is taking shape. Even the coach himself is back to his old self. Dry and unsympathetic when the press conferences accumulate. This serious attitude is shaped by such annoying questions as, for example, whether he knew that a player had been sent off in Switzerland. They asked him about Ramos and his two missed penalties. And even about his favourite goalkeeper for next summer's European Championship. Brave journalists who suffer with the national team the same sibylline censorship as in LaLiga when they hear "just questions about the game, please".
On a sporting level, the fan has to know that Spain does not have emblematic players who influence their opponents with their presence. They are players of the highest level led by Sergio Ramos who will be hard to beat. The few that have a poster are not indisputable. De Gea, Thiago or Morata can be called up or not. The umpteenth Spanish revolution has not just greased the machine of playing world-class football.
Unai Simon has taken over De Gea's position. Kepa lives lost in London. Pau is like the Guadiana because his performance is not to make history with Spain either. In the rest of the positions Luis Enrique plays to try out. Not even the centre forward is the signature of the Spanish team's game. Morata is called up because he scores goals with Juventus. Paco Alcácer should be the reference for his regularity, but Luis Enrique has not called him. Gerard Moreno is doing well, but he could disappear in the next call-up. The players have not just taken the step in their teams and this makes things difficult for the Asturian coach who defends himself by explaining that he chooses the players according to the rival. The argument is good because it seems that we have a range of stars. But when the ball rolls it doesn't hold.
The transition of the Spanish team will be long. From the ridicule that Del Bosque allowed at the World Cup in Brazil to Spain lifting a title again will take years, players and coaches. Perhaps even another president. The level of the League has dropped and the players who emigrate are playing under different schemes. The 2021 Eurocup will be a relief for everyone. That it can be played and, who knows, with an audience in the stands it will already be a triumph. Spain will do what it can with what it has. It is not little, but it lacks level, experience, titles, great matches...
The memories of Spain will be forgotten when the VAR returns to the fields of Primera. With the next Barcelona-Atlético de Madrid. In every Zidane line-up now that Ramos has been injured. By the way, the Sevillian is going to mark the news of the next few weeks. His renewal is the eternal soap opera of Florentino Perez who knows that he cannot get rid of the player who has given him everything. But he has also taken his sleep away with his blackmailing of Manchester and China. And when all that is over and he signs the renewal, we will talk about his call with Spain for the Tokyo Olympics. This Spain of ours.
