Spanish captain Iker Casillas was at it again on Sunday night. Though he has long been crowned San Iker by his club fans, he may just have performed the three miracles needed to obtain sainthood. The culmination of the three-week tournament played in Poland and Ukraine ended with the goalkeeper lifting the Henri Delaunay trophy for the second time. In between European championships, La Roja were also crowned world champions in South Africa 2010. In the final, Spain gave a commanding performance in a 4-0 rout of Italy, a side they had failed to beat over 90 minutes for 98 years. Their route to the final began against the very same team, and the Azzurri were the only side to have scored … [Read more...] about Spain’s golden generation rewrites history
Xavi
La Liga: Real Madrid still in thrall to Barça’s brilliance
Starting slowly but building to a crescendo, countless statistics have been bounded about for the past week. This was the eighth time since his arrival, that José Mourinho’s Real Madrid side would face reigning Spanish champions FC Barcelona. The hosts had a 100-percent record at the Santiago Bernabéu this season and were on the verge of a record-breaking run of victories. This clash would supposedly signal a shift in power to the Spanish capital. A Clásico that would be el fin de ciclo for Barcelona. But at the final whistle, only one statistic stood out. Madrid have not beaten Barcelona in la liga since 2008. The game could not have started better for Madrid who were ahead in just 23 … [Read more...] about La Liga: Real Madrid still in thrall to Barça’s brilliance
Hands up if you find Barça’s beautiful game boring
There was something rather strange about Señor Antonio Lahoz’s half-time whistle at Estadio Anoeta in San Sebastián last Saturday. It sounded like a reasonably normal whistle, as whistles go. The short blast, followed by the longer one. Goals: Barcelona 2, Real Sociedad 0. Goalscorers Xavi Hernández and Cesc Fàbregas. Possession: 75 percent to Barcelona. No, everything perfectly in order there. Except it wasn’t. In most football matches, the referee’s half-time whistle precedes a collective expulsion of breath and a moment of calm to reflect on the 45 minutes of play just witnessed. This is so much of the beauty of football, the frenetic nature of this most exalted of pursuits means that … [Read more...] about Hands up if you find Barça’s beautiful game boring
Real Madrid, Barcelona, Orwell and the evil conspiracy
Let’s forget, for the moment, the fact that Real Madrid and Barcelona had an absorbing 1-1 draw in their liga meeting on Saturday. Instead, let’s look inside the heads of two of the night’s protagonists: Barça midfielder Xavi Hernández and Real Madrid coach José Mourinho. “Everyone could see that Barça were the better team, that we totally dominated. Although that’s not so great given that it was them that gave us the ball and them that shut down at the back in their own stadium.” This was the verdict of Xavi after the game. He had a point in that Barcelona did dominate possession, during one phase enjoying 79 percent of it (according La Sexta television’s onslaught of statistics). … [Read more...] about Real Madrid, Barcelona, Orwell and the evil conspiracy
Torres’ patchy form hints at world champions’ decline
Whisper it quietly, but not all is fresh in the state of Spain. When Vicente del Bosque's team lifted the World Cup in 2010 –adding to the European Championship title La Roja won in 2008 under Luis Aragonés– the world prostrated itself at the feet of the slickest passing side in history. Among Spain's players, there was a consensus that the tournament in Austria and Switzerland had proved an epiphany. Aragonés had largely removed the cult of idolatry by removing Raúl from the squad; he had, as Xavi put it recently, taken a gamble by betting on the bajitos –himself, Andrés Iniesta, Cesc Fàbregas, Davids Villa and Silva, for example– and Spain finally beat its bête noire, Italy, and the … [Read more...] about Torres’ patchy form hints at world champions’ decline
Hércules’ Italian job on Barça restores Liga intrigue
While staff at the Spanish Economy Ministry have been telling anyone who will listen for the last few months that “Spain isn’t Greece”, over at the football federation, they’ve had a rather more tricky time of it trying to convince us that “Spain isn’t Scotland”. Scotland in this context means a country with only two teams that ever look remotely like winning the domestic league. And over the last few years, while Real Madrid and Barcelona may not resemble Celtic and Glasgow Rangers in any way on the pitch, each pair of teams seems to enjoy a similarly vice-like duopoly on the silverware. So it was refreshing to see league champion and European powerhouse Barcelona humbled 2-0 by newly … [Read more...] about Hércules’ Italian job on Barça restores Liga intrigue
It’s Real Mourinho vs. Spain FC as La Liga begins
Nobody can accuse Spain’s top teams of lacking stars. Real Madrid has Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Iker Casillas and now Mesut Özil and Sami Khedira. Barcelona, meanwhile, has eight players from Spain’s World Cup-winning squad, including Xavi Hernández, David Villa and Pedro Rodríguez. And yet, as the Spanish league season gets underway, the eye is drawn not to midfielder Andrés Iniesta, a football genius in an accountant’s body, or the stepovers and hair gel of Ronaldo, but rather the two sharply dressed men overseeing these players at the side of the pitch. This season, perhaps more than any other, is a battle between two managerial auteurs: Barcelona’s Pep Guardiola and Madrid’s José … [Read more...] about It’s Real Mourinho vs. Spain FC as La Liga begins
Spain equipped for football immortality
It's pretty good to be a Spanish football fan at the moment. The reigning European champions set off for South Africa following a 6-0 victory against Poland in Murcia's Nueva Condomina stadium that emphatically rubber-stamped the 'tournament favourite' tag already hanging around Spain's neck. Poland are by no means a decent team, racking up just 11 points in a qualifying group that included San Marino and Northern Ireland, and if it were not for for Manchester United goalkeeper Tomasz Kuszczak Spain might have eased to double figures. But it is not so much the scoreline as the source of the goals that will have made Spain's opponents – if any had failed to notice over the last two years – … [Read more...] about Spain equipped for football immortality
Guardiola’s masterwork is based on Cruyff’s art
Barcelona’s latest triumph on a seemingly inexorable march to another domestic and European double –a 2-0 victory over Real Madrid in the Bernabéu on April 10– was described in the Spanish media as cartera ganado por cantera – roughly, the youth team beats the wallet. It has become one of Barcelona president Joan Laporta’s favourite jibes towards the team from the capital and the outspoken lawyer, who stands down from the stewardship of the club in the summer, is enjoying his personal finale immensely. “It was a victory for our mode of football and as a club,” Laporta told reporters after the match with thinly veiled glee. Of the two starting line-ups, Real’s contained one product of its … [Read more...] about Guardiola’s masterwork is based on Cruyff’s art