Spain was eliminated from the World Cup after controlling the ball for 120 minutes, completing 975 passes... and making two shots on goal, one of them hitting the post. Morocco, for its part, revived the catenaccio of the 20th century and the game was a tostón. Of course, no one will be able to say what is said in dynamic, fast-paced and crazy matches: the coaches must be desperate...
Auteur cinema, like this auteur football, usually produces great films but also an infinite number of firecrackers. The advantage is that if it is "author", the crap has a pass: maybe it's me, the spectator, who doesn't measure up... The football equivalent is the author teams, so fashionable, except for Real Madrid, those who bear the stamp of the coach, erected in this 21st century in the protagonist, a fact that already suits the managers – the whistles are taken by the coach – and the footballers, who are less distinguished.
Luis Enrique is a great coach. Only yesterday his footballers, in an exercise of tactical discipline and loyalty, did not rebel against a script called to end badly. They, on the field, preferred that trip to nowhere – sterile possession, no danger – rather than abandon orders, schemes and discipline, and mutiny to win by any means, sportingly speaking. And in the case of yesterday, that happened through two rudimentary, dandruff and elementary luck: balls to the pot and more shots from outside the area. This, of course, sounds unsophisticated, but when plan A does not work and plan B refers to plan A –in the case of Spain–, there is no other option. Everything except parading resignedly to the slaughterhouse, where a penalty shootout awaits you that usually punishes the one who accumulates the most frustration. Morocco had an objective and it fulfilled it: gaining access to the quarterfinals, adapting its football – talented in many previous matches – to stinginess. Anti-football? Soccer is winning. Or win, win and win. No follower of Morocco preferred last night to be a follower of Spain...
The game was a bore whose positive dimension was in the sportsmanship of the two teams, where some wanted to see conflict. An exemplary behavior that forces to congratulate the rival and something else, butterfly. Being eliminated from a World Cup is always a bad drink, especially mentally. And the way to say goodbye to Spain has been sad: you have lost a game that you should have won. And you know it, as a castizo would say...
If from a fun match we conclude that the coaches have had a bad time –of course, it devalues their role–, from a leaden game we would have to deduce that the coaches were cool. Maybe I'm the one who didn't understand this movie...
