Chronicle Spain survives itself in an unforgettable match
Analysis From Unai Simón's blunder to Morata's redemption in extra time: this is how Spain broke the knockout barrier
Opinion Crazy Spain at kilometer zero of glory
A
Morata
was hard to
hear what asked him the ball.
The noise of the
Parken Stadium
PA system
it prevented the sound from reaching him clearly. It had been a while since he had taken off his pink boots and answered by holding them in his lap, without losing sight of them. With them, with the left specifically, he sealed Spain's ticket to the quarterfinals and freed himself from a good part of the demons that had accompanied him to Copenhagen. The hugs, when the referee closed the matter, were for him. "I'm dead. I'm looking forward to getting on the ice and recovering from the effort," admitted the redeemed striker, who has lived not easy days for him. "Although the last weeks have seen things towards me that are not pretty, the rest have been great," he admitted almost breathlessly.
A goal, his, decisive for the future of
Spain
, with which, incidentally, equaled
Fernando Torres
as the top scorer on his way through the European Championship. They are five in his two adventures for the competition and the twentieth of his account in 43 games. "Álvaro is capable of generating superiority, giving you continuity, defending as if he were a central defender, dominating the aerial game, he has a goal, physical power. We have to value a lot what it means to have him in the national team and for him to be Spanish," Luis Enrique praised him , who has been faithful to the forward since the concentration began.
Just a few meters away,
Sergio Busquets
, melted by the effort, posed in front of a well-known green beer poster that rewards the best of the match.
It was not a new situation for him, who has completed his two appearances in the European Championship as MVP.
He stood for 101 minutes, until
Luis Enrique
, after
Morata's goal
, gave him a break.
"It was a very physical game and I had muscle discomfort. Now I have several days to recover before the quarterfinals," said the captain, whose return after Covid seems to have given the team an extra gear.
Luis Enrique hugs Unai Simón in the dressing room.PABLO GARCÍARFEF
Everyone's trust
By then,
Unai Simón was
already resting in the locker room. Relieved like few others because his monumental blunder was happily left in a simple anecdote. "Unai has all our confidence. He is a person with a very calm mentality, but he is also ambitious. He has made great saves and has been very safe," continued Busquets, the first to approach the goalkeeper to comfort him after the mistake. A successful gesture from the captain that the goalkeeper thanked him. For a few minutes he was spinning that ball that he was unable to control. The typical ball that he has dominated so many times without any problem. In fact, that virtue with his feet is what seduced
Luis Enrique
to bring him to the Eurocup and make him its starting goalkeeper.
It was the 21st minute when
Pedri
gave him the ball from the center of the field and the back of the Spanish fans, incredulous, ended up with his hands on his head.
The memory of that
Arconada
from the Euro'84, the
Zubizarreta
from the World
Cup'98
or the
Molina
from the Euro 2000, was inevitable.
When the break came, and with the score level again, it was
De Gea
, who also experienced a difficult situation in the last World Cup in Russia, who approached Simón and accompanied him with a relaxed talk on the way to the locker room.
A crazy mistake that he blurred with his saves and, fortunately, would end up becoming an anecdotal scratch for Spain.
"We thought we had it done"
"Football is a sport of mistakes. What worries us is trying. Unai has taught us that after a mistake, what matters is your attitude towards that mistake. He has shown it because he has a lot of personality," proclaimed the national coach. , after his first great episode at the head of the national team. For something he has been its main supporter. "Errors are part of football and you can see more in goalkeepers. We trust Unai and all those who do not play," added
Oyarzabal
, author of the sentence in the first part of extra time.
Luis Enrique
admitted an error that could well have cost them a place in the quarterfinals.
"Our most serious mistake has been to play the last minutes of the game thinking that we had already done it. The football has been fair," he concluded.
Spain has gone from the drought to being the highest scoring team.
One of them was signed by
Azpilicueta
.
The first since he came to the national team in 2013.
Now they await the quarter-finals, a peak that Spain had not reached since its glory at Euro 2012. One more step for a young team that now, surprisingly, awaits Switzerland.
A not so old acquaintance who has separated France from the Euro.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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