DOHA, Qatar — Jordi Alba came running up to them with the bad news. Lads, we’re out. All the talk about whether Spain might be able to engineer an easy path in the knockout rounds, and that they might be able to topple Germany into the abyss … now it was them on the edge of elimination. A sudden whirlwind and they were behind, unable to get control. Japan had scored twice to take the lead in their final Group E game. “And if they had needed three they would have got three,” Luis Enrique said after the match. The seleccion had entered “collapse mode,” the coach said.
Collapse mode. It makes it sound like an option, a tactical Plan B — precisely one of the things that Spain are accused of lacking. Like it’s something they can choose to do, an option, one of their things. And maybe it is, if not deliberately, which is what makes defeat against Japan concerning.
Ultimately, it worked out very nicely on Thursday night. So nicely, in fact, that those of a conspiratorial or even just a playful mind could imagine that this actually was a plan. A clever trick. Right lads, collapse mode! and with that everyone plays at being awful. Hugo Sanchez was among the many people who suggested that Spain might have done this deliberately. After all, the outcome was actually pretty good. Germany’s comeback against Costa Rica meant that Spain did survive in the end, going through in second place. All those things they might be able to engineer, they actually did in the end — in an elaborate and dramatic way.
They had knocked Germany out, a potential challenger cleared from their path. Kai Havertz had put Spain back in and Spain did nothing to return the favour.
They had gone into the easier half of the draw. In theory, at least. (Although look at the whole thing and that’s not so clear, even beyond the risk of making assumptions anyway). They play Morocco on Tuesday in the round of 16, and then possibly Portugal — instead of Croatia, and then possibly Brazil beyond that.
They get an extra day’s rest. (And this is a recurring theme — it is genuinely worth asking why the team that win the group “earn” a day less of rest than the team that finishes second).
They maybe even got a timely reminder. An alarm, as defender Pau Torres called it.
Or, to follow the conspiratorial line, it was proof that they can manage everything and bend football to their will, so good are they.
It would have been brilliant if it had been deliberate, but that expresses a control of the situation far greater than was real. And control is the word, one that obsesses Spain manager Luis Enrique. It is not that they pulled themselves out of trouble, it is that Germany did — although it is also true that in the final minutes Spain didn’t need to, and by then, they really might have settled for second place. Luis Enrique was furious at how they had played, and he told them so after the game.
The question now is whether this was a one-off, and how much of an impact that Japan defeat will have.
