The Spanish Armada

Spain

Long-suffering Spain’s quest for World Cup glory is almost legendary. When the ‘football underachievers’ are mentioned, one’s first thought is Spain. The Spaniards did themselves a massive favour shedding most of the ‘underachievers’ tag when they conquered Europe in 2008. With the FIFA World Cup, it is another ball game entirely. Vicente De Bosque’s will be slightly relieved that they are not branded as number one favourites to win the World Cup, that alone will not suffice if La Furia Roja fail to make their mark in South Africa.

Four years ago in Germany, the Spaniards were unceremoniously dumped out in the second round by France much to the chagrin to their teeming fans. In the 2002 World Cup co-hosted by Korea and Japan, a combination of poor officiating and vociferous home fans put paid to Jose Camacho’s tutored side as they lost to South Korea in the quarter-finals. To be sincere, the Spaniards were living on borrowed time in that tournament. The Fernando Hierro captained side were lucky to advance to the quarter-finals after an epic game against Ireland in the second round. If 2002 was a failure for Spain, then France 1998 was nothing short of a disaster. The great Adoni Zubizaretta featuring in his last World Cup could not save his team from being dumped out in the group phase. A 2-3 loss to Nigeria was followed by a drab draw with Paraguay, even a 6-1 demolishing of Bulgaria was too little too late as the top side in that group faltered.

Javier Clemente, then coach of the Spanish national side, and the Spanish FA were quick to blame their shock exit from the ’98 Mundial on the influx of foreign players into the Spanish La Liga. They claimed the large number of foreign player in the league was hampering the discovery and development of young Spanish talents. Fair enough, but the same undiscovered and underdeveloped Spanish talents were World Cup winners a year later in Nigeria (in the U20 category ) with the likes of Iker Casillas, Carlos Marchena and Xavi (yes, the very Xavi Hernandez of Barcelona). That put to rest the excuse of ‘foreign players killing local talents’ in Spain. Should you take a look at the Spanish La Liga at the moment (home to the best football club in the world), most of the names reverberating in the stadiums and streets of Spain are foreign. Diego Forlan, Lionel Messi, Sergio Aguerro, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Freddie Kanoute and Luis Fabiano but to mention a few are not Spaniards yet Spain can boast of young-talented players in the form of Gerrard Pique, Bojan Krkic, Andreas Iniesta, Cesc Fabregas, Alvaro Negredo amongst others.

 Honestly, I believe the Spaniards are out of excuses and should put up a great show for the world in South Africa, perhaps the tag of ‘great underachievers’ will be taken off their necks. Should Chile, Switzerland and Honduras somehow thwart Spain’s quest for glory, I wonder what excuse La Furia Roja will come up with. Poor officiating? Perhaps they will clamour for goal-line technology. Spain, the world is watching!