Iker Casillas lifted the World Cup coated in olive oil. He did from where Thiago Alcântara was sitting anyway. Spain against the Netherlands in Johannesburg in July 2010 is the biggest TV event in the country’s history and among the 15,605,000 people watching when the ball sat up in front of Andrés Iniesta 8,000km away were the country’s under-19s, together in
http://www.broncosfootballprosshop.com/Bradley_Roby_Jersey_Cheap the dining room at the Federation’s Las Rozas HQ north-west of Madrid, where they were preparing for the
http://www.officialbruinsprostore.com/jeremy-lauzon-jersey-for-sale-c-31.html European Championship. Thiago remembers it well; he tells it well too. He stops, takes a deep, theatrical breath. Huuuh. “The pause,” he says. “That was the moment.
“Both teams were tired. Holland had their chances: we still had the fear from the Arjen Robben chance Iker had saved. There were nerves. You’re thinking: ‘Bloody hell, this is going to penalties.’ Suddenly, the ball’s there, and Andrés, and the goalkeeper is there, and everyone freezes. And then it turns out the way it turns out …
Total ecstasy,” Thiago calls it. “Plates fly into the air, food goes up, the olive oil flies, the knives and forks too. It was some party. Shirts off, jumping up and down on the tables. And when the final whistle went, everyone threw themselves into the pool. After the goal, we could barely see the rest of the game because the telly was covered in water and olive oil.”
He grins: “They passed us the bill for the damage.”
That was the second time Thiago had celebrated a World Cup success. In 1994 his dad, Mazinho, won the tournament with Brazil, a mini World Cup sitting atop the television ever since. Thiago was only three but recalls the celebrations. “I don’t remember the games but I remember my dad arriving in Brazil because all the family was waiting for him. It was huge. Football’s a religion there. He’s loved, idolised. At that age you have no idea
Jordan Clarkson Authentic Jersey why people are reacting like that. I remember them being very excited, and I was just happy my dad was home.
“I always loved football so much and I knew from a very young age I was going to be a footballer; I used to watch the way they
http://www.officialredwingsauthentic.com/authentic-31-curtis-joseph-jersey.html did everything really closely. I lived with it.”
Thiago’s father joined
Alex Cappa Womens Jersey Celta, bringing the family to Spain, and so, in 2010, he was celebrating again. “When we watched the 2010 final I wouldn’t say we felt part of the team as such but nor were we just fans. The sensation was that our colleagues had done something that, bloody hell, we want to do that as well. It generates a joy in you and also a desire, a hope that one day it could happen to you.”
Eight years on, it really could. Thiago arrived in Russia ready, loaded up with box sets. The midfielder arrived with high hopes and two of his fellow food-throwers from 2010: Rodrigo and Koke.
Koke has been before, in 2014, but this is Thiago’s first World Cup; against Morocco he made his first start
Lars Eller Womens Jersey at a major tournament. At 27, the outstanding player of his generation, runner-up at that 2010 Euros, an under-17 champion in 2008 and at under-21 level in 2011 and 2013, when he was the player of the tournament, it feels a little late. Yet he has no sense of lost time.
“I feel a much more important player now than before but that’s also because there’s been a generational change. There’s a group of players from the under-21s who are now a big part.”
What has not changed is his football, or Spain’s. That, at least, is the theory. But the start to this World Cup has, for the first time in a decade, brought a debate. Thiago played with Julen Lopetegui in the under-21s and he prefers to pass over all that happened, but the manager’s sacking and Spain’s unconvincing progress through Group B have created an uncertainty about their identity. The new manager, Fernando Hierro, asked whether they needed “more muscle”, then insisted that muscle was not really their thing but the fact the question was even posed was striking. Some are advocating a revolution.
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