Luis Enrique lost his popularity in 120 minutes, writes Anssi Karjalainen.
Just staring at a list of names is dangerous. Spain was threatened before the final tournament of the World Cup, because its attacking roster was considered the weakest of the major countries.
Álvaro Morata continued to suffer from the reputation of a spendthrift due to the missed goals in the last European Championships. Ferran Torres, Dani Olmo and Marco Asensio are not prime finishers.
Threats became concrete in the first playoff stage. Morocco held Spain to nil and went into the last eight via penalty kicks. However, the statistics of the Fotmob service, for example, show that Spain’s goal-scoring problem did not culminate in the finishers at the attacking end, but rather in the problems in play.
If you forget the opening defeat of the games against Costa Rica (7–0), Spain created a goal expectation of about one goal in each of its matches. In other words, La Roja didn’t deserve more.
Morocco defended the entire 90 minutes in either a low or middle block. It kept the gaps between the two bottom lines very close, and Spain couldn’t break into the pockets in front of the last line.
Luis Enrique’s Spain experienced a real fiasco. PDO
On the other hand, when Spain attacked from the midfield and wing lanes, progress was often thwarted by a winger’s unsuccessful challenge. Ferran Torres was bad for Moroccan defender Noussair Mazraoui. What surprised me the most was the lack of rotations when breaking through the wings, and the fact that Ansu Fati – La Liga’s most dangerous forward with the ball – was sitting on the bench for almost the entire tournament.
Spain’s threat in Morocco’s penalty area was almost non-existent.
Head coach Luis Enrique organized an unprecedented feat in these games. The Asturian pilot held a live Twitch broadcast for Spain’s supporters on a rare night.
Luis Enrique wanted his words not to be distorted in the media. That’s why he gave fans a free platform to ask really anything – and he answered anything. He had time to break the myth of the use of a fake unit in his style of play. When asked if he wears boxers or legless briefs, Enrique replied that he wears thong briefs. The jokes sank into the audience like a hot knife into butter.
The performance of the head coach of the national team made him a really popular, downright cool guy among the people. No wonder he was called “Luis Padrique” and “Daddy Cool”.
Luis Padrique certainly wanted to draw attention to himself and remove outside pressure from the team. After the defeat against Morocco, he emphasized that he was “satisfied with how the team implemented his way of playing”.
Bono caught the Spaniards hard. EPA / AOP
– Only the goal was missing. Bono (Morocco goalkeeper) was the MVP, Luis Enrique said.
Luis Enrique fell out of favor within 120 minutes, whether he was happy with the commitment of the players or not. The process got stuck at an intermediate stop. Is it worth continuing it under Luis Enrique’s command for longer? At the time of writing, 86 percent Spanish AS magazine of readers said no.
Before the World Cup final, Luis Enrique reminded of Spain’s dull balance: in the Nations League final 2021, in the EC semi-finals in 2021, in the group stage of the Nations League in 2022. Admittedly, the team has been at the very top of Europe in the last two years or so. Being eliminated in the quarterfinals is a fiasco compared to that.
It is a coach who wants to challenge journalists. When criticism hits, Luis Enrique tends to growl. However, the reminder tweet above was an indication that he himself also wants to throw gasoline on the flames in public.
When Luis Enrique arrived in the press room on Monday, an interesting revelation was heard from him.
– More than a year ago, at the national team camps, we gave our players homework. They had to shoot at least 1,000 goals in their club teams. We cannot only train them in the national team.
Morocco made a sensational progress to the top eight of the World Cup. EPA / AOP
– The penalty shootout is not a game of luck. You can practice pulling the ranker. Pressure is always present, but you can still shoot at the goal under pressure.
Against Morocco, his first three shots were Pablo Sarabia, Carlos Soler and Sergio Busquets. Each of them failed.
A year ago in the summer, the European Championship ended against Italy in a tough match. “Lucho”‘s demand is understandable, because he did not want to experience something like that again.
In fact, Spain should not have had to settle its fate in the last possible place, the knockout stage. At least at this stage of the tournament.