Ask a thousand football fans what they love about the
Spanish national team and you can bank on the fact that Xavi, Fernando Torres, David Villa, Andres Iniesta, quick passing and attacking verve will feature in the vast majority of the answers.
Only the anorak, and I, will fight for the good name of their defensive troops – Iker Casillas, Carlos Marchena, Gerard Pique, Carles Puyol, Sergio Ramos and Joan Capdevila. They are the least known and least appreciated of La Furia Roja, but some of the funniest,
cleverest and most hard-working
footballers at this tournament.
For example, had you any idea that for all Spain’s marvellously daring play when they tear into opponents, the World Cup semi-finalists have kept clean sheets in 19 of their 30 matches since winning the European
Championship in 2008?
And, based on the bedrock of their stingy back four, Spain have now won 40 consecutive internationals when they have gone 1-0 up. Marchena has racked up a world record of 53 inter-
nationals without defeat, beating Garrincha’s record of 49, Capdevila reached the quarter-finals in South Africa as Fifa’s highest-rated player of the tournament via their Castrol Index – earning 9.7 out of 10 despite the fact even the Villarreal man himself says he is “not a first line player”.
Ramos and Capdevila play more like wing-backs than full-backs and before last night’s win over Paraguay, the two had not only completed the majority of Spain’s 106 crosses into the penalty area (28 more than their closest rival) they also had two of the best pass
completion rates in the tournament, 79% and 81% respectively.
I wanted to be a bullfighter, not a footballer, but my mum was too scared
Sergio Ramos
Ramos is something of a law unto himself who told me last week that he got so high up the pitch against
Honduras because he has promised a girlfriend a goal and special celebration, so he’s flying down the wing regardless of tactical orders.
And Capdevila is a good footballer who is one of the most dogged of modern tacklers, but a flying machine he certainly ain’t any more. So shouldn’t Spain be conceding goals to clever opposition wingers? Isn’t the fact that they are often left with two at the back an invitation for quick counter-
attacking teams to score and to beat them on a consistent basis? The odd couple of centre-backs are a major part of why that doesn’t happen.
A couple of days ago, Argentina’s 1978 World Cup-winning coach Cesar Luis Menotti described Pique as “the greatest
centre-half I have seen since Franz Beckenbauer”. When I mentioned this to the Barcelona defender he stopped for a milisecond before confirming that “everyone knows that Menotti knows his football”. Which sums up Pique’s personality: good enough to be nicknamed
“Piquenbauer” in Catalunya, but cheeky, irreverent and occasionally wild.
Television interviews in the Camp Nou have been interrupted by Pique and Bojan dancing behind the presenter wearing only towels around their laps and this week at Ellis Park an interview with Cesc Fabregas was enlivened by the towering centre-half disrobing revealingly behind the interviewer in order to make his best friend, Fabregas, crack up in helpless laughter.
The fact he is so devotedly close to the massively serious, almost obsessively
committed Puyol is one of the
quixotic tricks football produces. They have played together 76 times for club and country, losing twice, and the bond works off the pitch too. “He’s heavy on your ears,” Pique admits about Puyol. “He thinks I lose concentration and he never stops yelling ‘Geri’ at me – even when the ball is in the opposition penalty area!”
Iniesta is an amused spectator with club and country. “They are completely different characters and players which is presumably why the fit is so good,” he says. “They each improve the other and if Puyol brings the power and the determination then Geri adds elegance and a great ability to bring the ball out of defence. Honestly, I think Geri
playing for Barca and Spain has added a lot of fun to Carles’ life. Before he used to stress out quite a lot. Since he teamed up with Pique he laughs more and enjoys his football more.”
Only Fabregas disagrees. “They are both a pain in the butt – between them they never let me sleep, they are always tormenting me and not one squad get-together passes without one or other of them trying to catch me out in one way or another.”
On either side of the two pillars are two more characters. Ramos, the most expensive Spaniard transferred between two La Liga clubs is the guy who arrived at the Bernabeu wet behind the ears but ready to claim: “I want Fernando Hierro’s shirt number and I want to emulate his achievements with Madrid.”
It went down like a proctologist at a finger buffet – but with maturity he has become one of Europe’s most powerful
and dynamic defenders. With a strong possibility Jose Mourinho will either convert him to an out-and-out centre-half or sell him to AC Milan there are golden years ahead for the Andalucian.
Nevertheless, he complains: “I never wanted to be a footballer when I was growing up, I wanted to be a bullfighter
but my mum would never let me because she was too scared. I have had to calm down a little over the years because if I admitted all the tricks I used to get up to when I was younger then they’d probably clap me in jail. That has probably helped me in football terms because when I play centre-half for Madrid it is a less free, more demanding role where concentration is at a premium.”
Throw in the fact that captain Casillas
is a flinty, rock-hard competitor and you have the Dirty Half Dozen (Casillas,
Puyol, Pique, Ramos, Capdevila and Marchena) who maintain La Roja’s defensive purity. Except that the final statistic to is that dirty they are not.
Pique is scrupulous about winning the ball cleanly and is rarely suspended, and in the group stage Spain became the first team since 1986 to avoid a single yellow card. Both the Spain and Barcelona
coaches tend to have consistency of selection as a weapon because, for all their physical force, Pique and Puyol play the ball, not the man.
And, above all, they don’t care if you love Villa or Xavi, or El Nino more than them. “You get used to being undervalued or less famous because it is the winning that counts” admits Puyol.
History will remember this Spain squad fondly, but without the Dirty Half Dozen they’d be nothing.
Graham Hunter
