World Cup 2010 : AS

Apocalypse now as bedlam reigns in Spain

Tim Stannard — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:40:00 GMT

“Oh! There’ll be an apocalypse!” was the cheerful prediction from the perkily pretty and madly-grinning Sandra, a waitress working in Madrid’s Plaza Dos de Mayo when asked what would happen if Iker Casillas were to lift the World Cup the following day.

Sandra wasn’t too far off.

At 6am on Monday morning, the streets of Madrid mirrored the cities, towns and villages of the rest of the World Cup-winning country - streets covered with detritus and drunks. Spread-eagled, staggering, stupefied and senseless supporters wrapped in flags unable to remember if they had jobs to go to in two hours time but not really caring if they did.

At 6 am on Monday morning, Spain smelt of sweat, beer and p*ss - the true smell of Champions.

Although the ho-down against Holland did not start until eight thirty in the evening, supporters began sitting patiently in front of the five giant screens set up along Madrid’s Paseo de Recoletes and up to the Cibeles fountain from midday.

By the time the match kicked off, there were 200,000 of them - a marvellously good-natured mass who had survived hours of truly terrible pop acts and 40 degree heat by singing the only chant any follower of la Roja needs to know - “Yo Soy Español! Español! Español!”

A few hours later, a new song had been added - “Campeones!”

After a truly tortuous, terrifying game that sent the near quarter of a million crowd into silence with the growing, nagging fear that the match would end in penalties and a Netherlands victory, San Iker lifted the beautiful, sparkling gold trophy into the air.

Spain had won the World Cup, something that LLL and perhaps millions of others around the country are still trying process.

When the final whistle was blown by the hapless Howard Webb, bedlam broke out in the Recoletes Fan Park. It was apocalypse, right frackin’ now.

Security fences crashed, fireworks banged, fans screamed, cried and piled onto each other. A black coffin with the words “Holland R.I.P.” that one imaginative group had brought along for the game was burned whilst people danced around the fire Lord of the Flies style.

For hours after the game, fans stood in the streets beeping everything they could or danced like loons in the few remaining fountains that had not been fenced off by city officials fearing mass destruction of some fairly historic property.

By 8 am, hungover but happy supporters were gathering around newspapers kiosks to pick up their bursting, bulging copies of Marca and AS.

It was almost as if they were looking for confirmation of what had happened the night before - a night dominated by Andrés Iniesta’s goal and Iker’s kiss, an image that will surely become the defining one of the World Cup win in Spain.

However, the World Cup party was only just starting to get going. The supporters had chatted in the kitchen and danced in the living room. Now it was time for 45 million people to move to the bedroom.

To the south of the city in the shadow of the Royal Palace and along the banks of the regenerated River Manzanares, fans started pouring into the scene of what eventually became the Pepe Reina show as La Selección took to the stage in front of hundreds of thousands of supporters, some of whom had been waiting up to 11 hours in the stunning heat and were being hosed down by firemen who looked like they had never had so much fun in their lives.

Before the players charged onto the stage, they had undertaken an insane open top bus tour of Madrid that brought an estimated 2.5 million people onto the streets to welcome their heroes home.

With fans hanging out of windows and helicopters whirring overhead, the bus spent three hours eking its way through the centre of the city before reaching its final destination, where the magnificently manic Liverpool goalkeeper proceeded to both insult and praise his team-mates one-by-one.

“The future of Barça, the future of Spain - Cesc Fabregas!” was the greeting for the Arsenal man as Reina and Carles Puyol wrestled a Barcelona shirt onto the horrified midfielder.

“The nervous-wreck of la Selección, Jesús Navas!”

"The truck of the team, Fernando Llorente!”

At midnight, it was all over with reality beginning to bite. The hundreds of thousands set about the near impossible task of getting home and tried to digest what had been one of the most exhausting, intense but exhilarating 24 hours anyone in the country can ever have experienced.

Spain are World Cup winners 2010. And that sounds very good, indeed.

FFT.com: Features * News * Interviews * Home
Interact: Twitter * Facebook * Forum

Spain ready for most important date

Tim Stannard — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:05:00 GMT

The dead from the waist up LLL doesn’t really get excited about anything that doesn’t involve zombies. Or grapes. Or both.

However, the blog must confess that it had a sleepless Tuesday night. And that wasn’t just because it was about 1000 degrees in the Spanish capital, but because if Del Bosque’s boys beat Germany today, then frackin’ Spain will be in the frackin’ World Cup final with a very good chance of winning it against the jammy frackin Dutch!

And that is about the most thrilling thing that has happened here since Andalusia had its first inside toilet installed way back in 2007.

If the celebrations after doing one over the Dutch, on Sunday, are even as half as insane as those for the Euro 2008 win, then every fountain in the land will have a good 1000 pogo-ing people dancing in it and no bin will remain unburned.

Unfortunately, for all that to pass then Germany are going to have to be beaten. And for all the articles being written and pundits opining, no-one really has any clue what is going to happen in Wednesday’s semi-final clash, so it’s no wonder that the footballing world has been looking to an octopus for guidance.

And speaking of creepy, hairless organisms that shoot ink whenever threatened, Luis Aragonés has also been probed thoroughly for his views on the titanic Teutonic clash.

Despite being publicly told to shut his cakehole by the Marca director, Eduardo Inda, earlier in the tournament after criticising La Roja’s performances, the former Spain boss has now been given all the space he needs in the paper to ruminate on Wednesday’s clash - a cogitation that ended with the prediction that “I think Spain will go through (squirt, squirt).”

Inda agrees and has already begun taunting Sunday’s possible opponents with the jibe, “great! Holland are in the final, so what?” “If we go through tonight then we are champions,” predicts Marca’s main man attempting to match the paper’s genius “Zidane, we are going to retire you, tonight” boast from the 2006 World Cup clash against France.

In Wednesday’s editorial, the jar marked hyperbole has been as left as empty as Guti’s brain with the paper claiming that “we are at the most important date in Spanish football. La Roja are on the cusp of glory, and just two steps away from becoming legends.”

The vibe as AS more of concern that confidence and are quite rightly fretting over the footballing prowess of Germany with the paper’s editor Alfredo Relaño noting that “we call the Germans squareheads because deep down we envy their virtues.”

Both Schweinsteiger and Villa appear on the front cover with the Spain man trying to look mean and moody but instead giving the impression that he has trapped wind.

Wednesday’s edition also helpfully points out that there are 400,000 Germans living in Spain, but disappointedly fails to print their addresses as a handy guide as the nearest person taunt should la Roja prevail.

The Catalan papers may have joined in the hype over the clash a little bit more enthusiastically, but have discovered that their beloved Barcelona are broke with new president, Sandro Rosell admitting that he has “found a club that is indebted” and has had to borrow €150m from a credit syndicate to pay June’s bills.

However, Sport's Josep María Casanovas still has his eyes on the prize in Durban and says that “we have the players, the team and the ambition. There is no fear of Germany, on the contrary Germany respect us now.”

Aside from thoughts of becoming legends, touching glory and making history, the theme in Spain on the day of their semi-final dust-up is indecision when looking to who will be the winner.

Which is why LLL will be spending the final hours before the clash doing what everyone else is doing by pacing the streets going “SPAIN! No, Germany. SPAIN!, No Germany. SPAIN! No, Germany...”

More World Cup stuff: Features * Lists * Interviews

FFT.com: Features * News * Interviews * Home
Interact: Twitter * Facebook * Forum